Enel stock is positive in Piazza Affari and around 10,30 am it gains 1,84% despite the decision (yesterday) by the New York court to freeze Enel and Enelpower assets up to 597,4 million US dollars for the dispute with Albania Beg Ambient Shpk, a renewable energy company headed by a group of Italian and Albanian entrepreneurs.
At the basis of the dispute between Enel and Albania Beg, which has become a real judicial tangle, there is a collaboration contract, which never came to fruition, for the construction of a hydroelectric plant. The dispute began in 2000 with an arbitration award in Italy won by the group led by Fulvio Conti. Against this decision, the Italian-Albanian company has exhausted all levels of judgment and lost up to the Cassation.
However Albania Beg has initiated another trial in Albania. And in this case it was Enel that succumbed in all levels of proceedings. The latest decision of the Albanian Cassation dates back to March 7, 2011 and confirmed the conviction of Enel, according to the reconstruction of Albania Beg, to pay around 25 million euros for acts of unfair competition and 405 million for the lack of energy production in the years 2005-2011.
On the basis of this sentence, the requests for enforceability were initiated before the New York court. But the American front is not the only one opened by Albania Beg to obtain the enforceability of the sentence. The company has also turned to the Tribunal de Grande Instance in Paris, before which Enel and Enelpower have appeared in court, and the proceeding is ongoing.
For its part, Enel has also initiated civil proceedings in Italy asking the court of Rome for damages equal to the sum that Enel and Enelpower could be required to pay to Albania Beg Ambient in the event of enforcement of the Albanian sentence. In addition, Enel has turned to the European Court of Human Rights for violation of the right to a fair trial and the principle of legality, with a request for the Republic of Albania to be sentenced to compensation for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages. A proceeding that is still pending.
