Italy's Saipem, which was hired by Gazprom to lay the undersea section of the South Stream gas pipeline, and then the Turkish Stream pipeline, has filed a lawsuit against a subsidiary of the Russian gas giant.

Saipem S.p.A. filed a request for arbitration against South Stream Transport B.V. (now a 100% subsidiary of Gazprom) with the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris on November 10, 2015. The sum of the lawsuit is approximately 759 million euro, according to Saipem materials.

South Stream Transport's contract with Saipem stipulated drafting of the working documentation and construction of the first strand of the undersea section of the South Stream gas pipeline, as well as installation of shore facilities and onshore pipelines, for roughly 2 billion euro.

After Saipem filed the lawsuit, Gazprom reported that Saipem was in the running for a contract to build the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a project which is more likely to be implemented.