Chaired by Nikolai Dubik, Member of the Gazprom Management Committee – Head of the Legal Department the judges of the Gazprom Arbitration Court assembled today for an annual meeting at the Company’s Headquarters.

Taking part in the meeting were representatives of the Gazprom Legal Department.

The meeting summed up the operational results of the Gazprom Arbitration Court for 2008. The participants underscored that the completion of the complex and abundant work related to the court practice colligation for 2004-2007 had been one of the major achievements. Later on, this will enable the Arbitration Court to optimize its actions, reduce the term of consideration of cases, primarily for uniform commercial disputes.

The meeting noted that the work done over the previous years with regard to improving the Rules of the Arbitration Court had ensured a 15 per cent cost reduction in arbitration proceedings in 2008.

Special attention was paid to further prospects for raising the operational efficiency of the court. In particular, the meeting participants touched upon the issue of integrating electronic document management and digital signature into the court operation in order to reduce a time span required for arranging legal proceedings.

“The huge range of Gazprom’s business activities as well as plenty of subsidiary and affiliate companies within Gazprom’s structure determine the unique role of the Arbitration Court in increasing the efficiency of the Company’s operations, namely, through developing a unified law enforcement practice for Gazprom Group.

Nowadays the Gazprom Arbitration Court has a reliable reputation based on the judges’ expertise and the great work experience. This is the reason why an increasing number of enterprises not entering into Gazprom Group choose our Arbitration Court for the judicial settlement of disputed issues,” pointed out Nikolai Dubik.

Background:

The Arbitration Court – a form of legal dispute settlement between the parties not by state courts but by impartial third party individuals chosen or agreed to by the contending parties by mutual consent or statutory provision.

The permanent Arbitration Court of Gazprom was set up in 1993 pursuant to the RAO Gazprom Charter for the purpose of settling economic disputes between the Company’s subsidiaries.

Since 2003 the Court has been resolving disputes not only between Russian legal entities and individual businessmen, but also between business entities registered in the CIS countries.

The Gazprom Arbitration Court was created to meet the top-priority task of ensuring a rapid and unified consideration of economic disputes, taking into account the specific nature of the gas industry. Recourse to the Gazprom Arbitration Court allows the Company’s subdivisions and subsidiaries to retain commercial secrets and save means for court proceedings.

The Gazprom Arbitration Court’s judges are well-known lawyers, recognized legislators from leading educational establishments, judges of international arbitration courts including from the International Commercial Arbitration Court at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation, the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, ICC International Court of Arbitration etc.

Over 16 years of its activity the Gazprom Arbitration Court has tried 930 cases, with no reversal of its judgments recorded. In 2008 the Arbitration Court considered 104 cases, 19 of those resulted in the conciliation of parties.