Despite litigation in LCIA, Canada's MDA could adopt constructive approach, return to contract
Head of the State Space Agency of Ukraine (SSAU) Pavlo Degtiarenko has said that the dispute with Canada's MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) in the project on the creation and launch of the first Ukrainian telecommunications satellite Lybid could be settled and the Canadian company could return to the project.
"Despite the fact that we applied to the London Court of International Arbitration [LCIA] we still hope that MDA would adopt a constructive approach and return to the contract," Degtiarenko told Interfax-Ukraine, commenting on the decision of the government to approve the financing to the State Space Agency to pay the costs of Ukrkosmos state enterprise for a judicial settlement in the LCIA of a dispute with Canadian MDA.
As reported, the government of Ukraine has approved the issue of UAH 28 million (about $1 million) from the reserve fund of the national budget to the State Space Agency to pay the costs of Ukrkosmos state enterprise for a judicial settlement in the LCIA of a dispute with Canadian MDA within the project of creating and launching a satellite of the national satellite communication system Lybid.
The satellite was created under a contract signed by SSAU and Canada's MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) in December 2009. A loan worth $254.6 million was raised from Export Development Canada (EDC) against government guarantees to build the satellite on the Express 1000NT platform, developed by Russia's Information Satellite Systems – Reshetnev Company. Since summer 2014, the satellite has been in safe custody at the Russian developer, as was instructed by the Canadian general contractor.
The implementation of the project was under a threat of a failure due to the annexation of Crimea and the loss of land infrastructure involved in the project by Ukraine. Taking additional financial liabilities, Ukraine has overcome force majeure: in 2014-2015 a new spacecraft control center was built on Ukraine's mainland.
Ukraine's government in October 2017 supported SSAU's proposal for additional financing of the project in the amount of $17 million, taking into account increased costs.
