The two-page joint motion provided little commentary on the war, which has now raged for over a week after Russian military forces invaded Ukraine to start a conflict that has brought swift international condemnation including financial sanctions, a condemnation vote at the United Nations, and thousands of reported deaths.
The move to pause discovery between Ukraine and Tatneft marks a shift in the case compared to the approach taken last month before the start of the war. At that time, the Russian company was pushing for discovery in the case despite concerns from Ukraine that opening up its financial records to examination could put the country at risk should that information be leaked from Tatneft to the Kremlin.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly had originally sided with the Russian company's arguments in early February, when she said the information being sought was unlikely to undermine Ukrainian national security if leaked. She said then that she had reviewed the documents at issue and was certain that treating them as outside counsel "attorney's eyes only" was enough to keep the case moving and keep Ukraine's interests protected.
The broader case relates to a $112 million arbitral award that Tatneft won nearly eight years ago from a Paris tribunal after it was ousted from a joint venture that operated Ukraine's largest refinery. Tatneft has since then sought to track down Ukrainian assets to enforce the award, which was confirmed by a D.C. federal court in August 2020. That ruling was then affirmed by the D.C. Circuit in December 2021. Since originally being granted, the award amount has grown to $172 million when accounting for interest accrued.
The Russian aggression in and toward Ukraine, which formally launched last Thursday but had been brewing for weeks before that, spurred a muscular sanctions response from the U.S. and NATO governments, including a freezing of assets that began in February as Russian troops first started to enter breakaway regions of Ukraine as well as the U.S., the U.K. and most of Europe's barring of Russian banks from using the global SWIFT financial messaging network.
While sanctions have largely spared targeting Russia's energy sector directly, it hasn't gone without feeling pain from the international backlash. Major oil and gas companies, including BP, Shell PLC and Exxon, have announced over the past week that they are walking away from joint ventures and partnerships with Russian energy companies, despite those interests being worth billions of dollars. Among the companies targeted have been state-owned energy giant Gazprom and Rosneft.
Meanwhile, major Western asset managers, insurers and banks including Bank of America and Deutsche Bank have been pressured by environmental groups to cut their links with Russian oil, gas and coal businesses over the invasion, raising the specter that further isolation may yet materialize.
Counsel for Ukraine and Tatneft didn't immediately respond to requests for comment Friday.
Tatneft is represented by Jonathan I. Blackman and Nowell D. Bamberger of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP and Lauren K. Handelsman and Sarah Dowd of Binder & Schwartz LLP in the Washington, D.C., case. It is also represented by Lauren K. Handelsman of Binder & Schwartz LLP in the New York case.
Ukraine is represented by Maria Kostytska and Kelly A. Librera of Winston & Strawn LLP.
The cases are PAO Tatneft v. Ukraine, case number 1:17-cv-00582, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and Ukraine v. PAO Tatneft, case number 1:21-mc-00376, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
--Editing by Janice Carter Brown.
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