Reinsurance Focus

In a companion opinion to the Second Circuit affirming the district court’s grant of a motion to confirm the final arbitral award in a dispute involving Kyivstar G.S.M. (“Kyivstar”) (see our October 26, 2009 post), a Ukrainian mobile telecommunications company, the Second Circuit has affirmed the decision of the district court finding Storm LLC (“Storm”) and its corporate parents (collectively, the “Respondents”) in civil contempt for the failure to comply with the final arbitration award and denying the Respondents’ motion for an order to amend the contempt order to delay sanctions and eliminate the requirement that Storm deposit its shares of Kyivstar with the court to secure compliance with the award.

In this appeal, Storm’s corporate parents disputed the determination that they were alter egos of Storm, which made them jointly liable for contempt, and the conclusion that the award required Storm’s affiliates to divest their interest from a Turkish telecommunications company rather than Astelit, LLC, a Ukrainian telecommunications company, and asked the circuit court to remand the divestiture question to the arbitration panel for clarification. The Second Circuit affirmed the decisions of the district court, stating that the findings of fact supported the conclusion that the corporate parents were alter egos of Storm and concluding that no support existed for a remand of the divestiture question because the award was unambiguous and the district court’s legal analysis was correct. Telenor Mobile Communications AS v. Storm LLC, No. 07-6929 (2d Cir. October 8, 2009).

This post written by Dan Crisp.