Nord Stream Loses €580m Insurance Case

Nord Stream has lost a €580m ($662m) lawsuit against insurers including Lloyd’s of London and Arch in the High Court in London over the 2022 explosions that damaged its gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea.

Judge Dame Clare Moulder ruled that the insurers were not required to cover the damage because the policies included a war-exclusion clause, the Financial Times reported. The paper said the case was one of the largest rejected insurance claims in infrastructure history.

Nord Stream is majority-owned by Russian state company Gazprom, while several European companies hold almost half of the firm’s shares. The court was not required to identify who carried out the sabotage. According to the ruling, the Russia-Ukraine war was a significant contributing factor in all plausible scenarios. Nord Stream had argued unsuccessfully that the war was only a backdrop and that non-state saboteurs may have been responsible.

Three of the four lines of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were destroyed by explosions in September 2022. No one has claimed responsibility for the sabotage.

German federal prosecutors have separately charged a Ukrainian national, identified as Serhii K., over the blasts. Prosecutors allege that he led a team that used a rented yacht to plant explosives on the pipelines near Denmark’s Bornholm island and acted on behalf of Ukrainian state entities. He denies the charges.

(max)