Pledge Broken

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1067, 3 September 1930, Page 9

Pledge Broken

SOVIET TO PAY £13,000,000

Goldmining Agreement

COMPANY'S OPERATIONS HAMPERED

THE Soviet Government has been ordered to pay £13,000,000 to an English goldmining company, which it prevented from executing an agreement for the recovery and disposal of products. A court of arbitration sitting in London indicted the Soviet Government for its failure to honour its pledge, and expressed regret that the Soviet had remained aloof from these proceedings.

British Official Wireless Reed. Noon. RUGBY, Tuesday. The Arbitration Court, which has been considering a dispute between the Soviet Government and the Lena Goldfields, Limited, an English company, gave judgment today that the company was prevented by the Russian Government from carrying out its agreement. The agreement was now ended and the Soviet Government was ordered to pay the Lena Company £13,000,000. This was the considered judgment of court, which consisted of Dr. Otto Stutzer, of Germany, described as a super-arbitrator, and Sir Leslie Scott, appointed by the Lena Goldfields Company. The court sat at the Law Courts, in London. At the preliminary hearing in Germany, the Soviet Government was represented, but it has taken no part in the present proceedings.

The judgment ran into several thousands of words, in the course of which it was emphasised that the Russian Government had agreed to a clause providing for arbitration, and that although its abstention from the proceedings was regrettable, it still remained bound by the clause. The company had long had large interests in Russia and employed about 15,000 workers. It complained of various breaches of agreement, including the failure of the Soviet Government to transfer to it the whole of the properties referred to in the concession, the prevention of the company from selling the Lena products in the Russian markets, failure to secure for the company the necessary transport facilities, the withholding of permission for the transfer of the company’s money from Russia to other countries and failure to give protection to the company’s poperty from larceny, robbery and arson.