Alliance Legal Moscow Law Bureau successfully secured a judgment terminating the ownership title illegally registered to Inter RAO – Electric Power Generation regarding a high-pressure gas pipeline, while simultaneously obtaining the dismissal of a similar counterclaim against the client (Case No. A47-20280/2022).

A particular feature of the case was that the disputed pipeline currently supplies gas to only one consumer—the Iriklinskaya GRES (owned by Inter RAO). Consequently, the defendant, viewing it as part of their own property complex, attempted to exploit the ambiguities of privatization legislation.

As a result, ownership rights to the same linear facility—albeit with differing inventory specifications—were registered in the Unified State Register of Real Estate (EGRN) under two different titleholders. The Alliance Legal Consulting Group team successfully convinced the court of the necessity to investigate this complex technical issue by appointing a forensic technical examination. The examination confirmed the disputed pipeline's independent status as a gas distribution facility.

The courts accepted the lawyers' arguments, retaining the high-pressure pipeline within the gas distribution assets of Gazprom Gas Distribution Orenburg. This prevented the creation of a dangerous judicial precedent that would have allowed not only the revision of gas network privatization results for the benefit of individual (albeit large) consumers, but also the evasion of transportation tariff payments through the illegal acquisition of part of Russia’s Unified Gas Supply System.

On February 9, the Supreme Court (Ruling No. 309-ES23-15894) put a final end to this long-running dispute.