The EU General Court has dismissed an action by the Gazprom-led consortium behind the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, which had challenged rules on pipeline access.
Swiss-based Nord Stream 2 AG launched its action against the EU Council and European Parliament in 2019. It was dismissed the following year, but the firm was given a further chance to argue its case by an appeal ruling in 2022.
In the second dismissal announced today, the Luxembourg-based court noted that Nord Stream 2 had continued to invest in the pipeline despite having “no assurance that EU law would continue not to be applied to its pipeline”.
“On the contrary, Nord Stream 2 AG could foresee that the EU institutions and a number of Member States, which had long since adopted positions to that effect, would use their power in order to extend the internal market rules to cover gas pipelines from third countries, such as the Nord Stream 2 pipeline,” the court said in a statement accompanying its ruling.
Nord Stream 2 – backed by Germany’s Uniper, Wintershall Dea, Austrian OMV, France’s Engie and Royal Dutch Shell as well as Russia's Gazprom – filed for bankruptcy on 1 March 2022, just a week after Russia launched its invasion.
In a recent new twist to the story, the Wall Street Journal reported last week that a US financier Stephen Lynch, a backer of president-elect Donald Trump, was planning to bid for the damaged pipeline if it is auctioned off during the bankruptcy proceedings.