Germany's Uniper succeeds in recovering €8 billion from Gazprom before arbitration is over – Bloomberg
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The German energy company Uniper, which was the largest buyer of Russian gas until 2022, was able to collect Gazprom about EUR 8 billion before the end of the arbitration process. About writes Bloomberg, citing informed sources.

After the start of Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine and the abrupt cessation of Russian gas supplies, European energy companies suffered billions of dollars in losses and began to sue Gazprom.

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Most of them are still waiting for their payments, but Uniper was able to speed up the process thanks to an unconventional legal strategy.

In parallel with the arbitration, in the summer of 2022, its lawyers filed a request for an urgent court decision with the regional court of Weiden in Bavaria, which is where gas routes from Russia run.

After winning the case, Uniper demanded €5 billion in advance, but the court refused. The company then appealed to the Nuremberg court, which agreed and allowed it to recover €3.65 billion.

Subsequently, Uniper won two more judgments – for EUR 3.79 billion and EUR 576 million.

In total, in 2022, the company received court orders to recover about EUR 8 billion, while its arbitration proceedings were completed only in June 2024 with the award of an additional EUR 13.5 billion.

To actually get the money, Uniper looked for claims that Gazprom had against other companies and targeted them.

Some of the money was received at the end of 2023, but the company does not disclose which assets or counterparties.

Lawyers say that this path is available only under special conditions – you need to prove an "emergency situation". In Uniper's case, its existence was threatened, so the courts acted quickly.

"There is a race between creditors and you have to try to act as quickly as possible," A&O Shearman lawyer in Frankfurt Tino Schneider said, adding: "If someone else takes the asset first, it's gone."

  • In June 2025, the German utility company VNG AG (Verbundnetz Gas) suspended its lawsuits against the Russian Gazprombecause he sees no chance of getting the money he owes back.