EuroGas to Sue Slovakia Over Talc Mining Again, Pursuing €20 Bn in Damages

Bratislava, May 29 (TASR) - EuroGas intends to take Slovakia to international arbitration court again over the alleged illegal revoking of its license for talc mining in Gemerska Poloma (Kosice region), TASR learnt on Wednesday. EuroGas didn't achieve any success with its first arbitration proceedings that concluded in August 2017 at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). The company is geared up to lodge a new lawsuit by the end of July, EuroGas board of directors Wolfgang Rauball confirmed to TASR. "We will stake significantly higher claim than in the first arbitration. We've acquired geological evidence that the talc deposit in Gemerska Poloma is of larger size than previously projected. Our estimates stand at €19-20 billion," stated Rauball. Rauball has maintained for a long time that the talc mining license was rescinded in 2004 illegally, with several involved parties engaged in corruption practices. "We've acquired sufficient evidence of criminal conduct by owners of Schmid Industrie Holding (SIH), the talc mining license-holder via a firm called Eurotalc, and its connections to state mining bodies in Slovakia. This group has been causing economic damage to EuroGas and its stock-holders for many long years. We acquired several pieces of new evidence also due to work by an investigative team headed by Karol Martinka. Mr. Martinka boasts bountiful experience with arbitrations and was also instrumental in Slovakia's win in the arbitration against Dutch-based HICEE," added Rauball. Robert Schmid, the owner of SIH, rejects Rauball's accusations. "Mr. Rauball likes to attack everyone: me, the Slovak Republic and mining bodies. I perceive all of this as fabrications conceived by him, on which I won't make any further comments." Eurogas lost its case in arbitration proceedings that lasted several years, as the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in its ruling last August accepted jurisdiction objections raised by the Slovak side. "The tribunal came to the unanimous conclusion that the plaintiff Eurogas's (II) merger with EuroGas (I) was illegal, and so no rights that it might claim in this arbitration could have been passed on to the plaintiff EuroGas (II)," wrote the Finance Ministry in its stance. EuroGas began indicating its plans to take legal action against Slovakia over the loss of the talc quarry in 2010. At first, it demanded compensation of €500 million in 2011. One year later a company called EuroGas Inc., registered in the USA, also began claiming compensation. The total sum of required compensation thus climbed to €1.5 billion. EuroGas asserted that its rights related to a trade agreement between the erstwhile Czechoslovakia and the USA from 1991 which had been violated. The Slovak Finance Ministry has denied that any such agreement was broken. mf/mcs