Kyiv's business court of appeals has annulled a ruling of a lower instance court to send UAH 79.877 million of dividends of private joint-stock company Gastransit (Kyiv, partially belongs to Russia's Gazprom) as part of the collection of a fine imposed on Gazprom by the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine.

The court ruling dated July 17, 2017 has been published in the unified register.

"Taking into account the fact that the term of paying dividends at the moment of issuing the challenged ruling [the ruling of Kyiv's business court dated June 6] did not become due, the judges came to the conclusion that the satisfaction of the claim to collect the dividends from net profit of PrJSC Gastransit violates the rights of shareholders in Gastransit, as the funds at the moment of issuing the ruling belonged to Gastransit, not Gazprom," the appeal court said in its conclusions.

As reported, the Antimonopoly Committee in January 2016 decided to fine Gazprom UAH 85 billion for abuse of its monopoly of the Ukrainian market for transit shipments of natural gas. This decision was upheld on several occasions by Ukrainian courts. In the latest ruling, on February 22 the Kyiv business court of appeals upheld the ruling of a lower court confirming the order to recover the fine from Gazprom, which had already grown to UAH 172 billion (about $6.4 billion) with fines for nonpayment.

Naftogaz Ukrainy and Gazprom each own 40.2174% of shares in Gastransit, and Turkey's Turusgas owns 19.5652%.