Arbitration tribunal orders MOL to act in INA’s best interests

Budapest, September 1 (MTI) – An arbitration tribunal has ordered Hungarian oil and gas company MOL to act in the best commercial interests of its Croatian unit INA, MOL and the government of Croatia said in a joint statement today.

“MOL must so exercise its various rights including relating to its shares in INA so as to ensure at all times that it acts in the best commercial interests of INA,” according to the decision of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) tribunal.

The tribunal also directed MOL, in the event of any sale of its stake in INA, to ensure that the buyer “bears the consequence of the present tribunal’s rulings with respect to the validity of agreements relevant to shareholder relations within INA”.

The tribunal has called on MOL and the Croatian government “not to discuss this matter any further in public”, according to the statement.

MOL holds a little less than 50 percent of INA’s shares. The state of Croatia owns about 45 percent. A perceived lack of investment in the company by MOL and the state’s failure to take over INA’s loss-making gas business, as stipulated in a shareholders agreement, have been sources of tension between the two stakeholders.

Photo: Daily News Hungary

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters