Rosatom says tribunal found Fennovoima not entitled to end 1,200 MWe Hanhikivi-1

A tribunal of the International Chamber of Commerce's International Court of Arbitration found that Fennovoima was not entitled to terminate the Hanhikivi-1 supply contract but was entitled to reimbursement of advance payments and interest, Fennovoima said, according to Reuters. The ICC has not published the ruling.

Writing in Strana Rosatom, the state corporation's in-house publication, Director General Alexey Likhachev said the court found in Rosatom's favour on the legality of the termination. Likhachev said Rosatom would continue to prove its case regarding the Finnish project in various courts.

Fennovoima signed the plant supply contract with Rusatom Overseas, Rosatom's nuclear plant export subsidiary, in December 2013. Rosatom offered to build a 1,200 MWe AES-2006 VVER unit in Finland under a fixed-price contract. Fennovoima is 66% owned by Voimaosakeyhtiö SF, whose shareholders include Finnish corporations and local energy companies, and 34% by RAOS Voima Oy, a Finnish subsidiary Rosatom set up in 2014 to buy the stake.

Fennovoima announced on May 2, 2022, a few weeks after the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, that it was terminating the engineering, procurement and construction contract, citing delays by RAOS Project and its inability to deliver the project. It withdrew its construction licence application on May 24. Rosatom said the tribunal found that at the time of termination the project "was still progressing" and that Rosatom companies "were making progress toward obtaining a licence to construct the nuclear power plant".