The ninth Moscow arbitration court of appeals has obliged RusHydro JSC to repay 25.465m roubles ($0.9m) in damages, infringed by the disaster at Sayano-Shushenskaya hydro-electric power station. The court has upheld an appeal of Sayanogorsk aluminium smelter, a part of Oleg Deripaska's RUSAL United Companies against the earlier ruling of a lower Moscow’s arbitration court. 

In December 2010 Moscow’s arbitration court rejected damages payout bid against owners of the power station. According to the court order, the plaintiff failed to prove that the damages had been caused by “power outage”. The evidence was insufficient that the electricity cut-off at the smelter had been the defendant’s fault. At the court of appeals the plaintiff brought before the judges the report of Rostechnadzor (Russian supervisory service) of investigation into the accident at Sayano-Shushenskaya station, owned by RusHydro JSC. According to the report, the accident was caused by misuse of the equipment by workers at the station.  

During the hearing, the judges inquired parties if there was reference to fault of the third party in the report. A representative of RusHydro informed the court that the report mentions Power Machines JSC (which supplied the station with the turbines) and certain officials of Rostechnadzor (who supervised the hydro-electric power station). As a result the court decided to apply principle of original jurisdiction and to take Rostechnadzor and Power Machines to court as the third party.

Let us remind, that earlier Oleg Deripaska addressed prime-minister Vladimir Putin in an open letter. He wrote that he thought it sensible to restructure «economically inefficient» RusHydro JSC, namely to split it into a number of independent assets. He advised that Sayano-Shushenskaya power station, the largest asset of RusHydro, become independent and RUSAL take a stake in it as the station's largest power consumer. 

 

Russian mafia portal (rumafia.com) reference: An explosion at Sayanno-Shushenskaya hydro-electric power station happened on August 17, 2009. Water flooded the turbine room, destroyed 3 turbines and generators and damaged others. The power station stopped. After the accident Sayanogorsk and Khakassk aluminium plants were cut off from the electricity. RUSAL Sayanogorsk aluminium plant run into about 25 million roubles ($0.87m) damages. More than 40b roubles ($1.4b) are needed to restore the station. RUSAL has not yet finished restructuring the company’s $16.8m debt and stopped all investment projects.