On 13 January 2026, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal lifted the attachments imposed on the Dutch assets of Gazprom International, an international arm of the russian state-owned gas champion Gazprom (“Gazprom Int.”). The attachments were previously imposed under the leave granted by the interim relief judge at the request of LLC Manufacturing and Commercial Company Avtodorkomplekt (“Avtodor”), which had sought security for the judgment rendered in Ukraine for approximately EUR 660 million for damages caused by the russian invasion of Ukraine.

In that case, Avtodor decided to reshape its approach: it did not pursue claims against the russian federation directly, nor did it frame Gazprom Int. as the “alter ego” of the russian state. Instead, Gazprom Int. was identified as the alter ego of its parent companies (PJSC Gazprom, Gazprom Export, PJSC Gazprom Neft).

In substantiating its request for attachment, Avtodor claimed, among others, that: 

• Gazprom Export manipulated gas supplies and pricing to EU Member States ahead of the 2022 invasion to fuel the energy crisis and weaken the EU’s willingness to intervene;
• PJSC Gazprom and Gazprom Export rewarded the EU-members with pro-Kremlin positions;
• PJSC Gazprom Neft recruited and deployed armed groups in Ukraine under the guise of private security personnel.

Avtodor further based its position on the combination of (i) group tort liability of PJSC Gazprom, Gazprom Export, and Gazprom Neft, which are jointly and severally liable parties who, “by their mutually connected, combined or common intentional actions, have caused damage to Avtodor”; and (ii) alter ego liability, under which Gazprom Int. was jointly and severally liable with PJSC Gazprom, Gazprom Export, and Gazprom Neft for the damage.

However, the Court of Appeal was not persuaded and reversed the interim relief on the following grounds:

(i) Disproportionality of interests 

The attachments targeted shares in Wintershall, which Gazprom Int. is in the process of selling. The Court found that the seizures jeopardised the transaction, risked the bankruptcy of Gazprom Int., threatened Dutch jobs, and overall undermined energy security. Against these consequences, Avtodor’s interest in maintaining the attachments was considered disproportionate – to the point that the seizure undermined the very narrative it sought to advance.  

(ii) State immunity

The Court observed that most of the conduct attributed to PJSC Gazprom et al. fell within ordinary commercial activity. Even if those actions were “inextricably linked” to the russian federation’s conduct, the underlying acts qualified as “undisputed “acte iuri imperii” for which immunity from jurisdiction applies”.

In this respect, the judgment follows the same line of reasoning as the July 2025 decision lifting attachments obtained by Ukrainian companies Slavutych and Zhnyva. In the words of the Hague District Court in that case:

“There is no evidence that customary international law has changed on this point [state immunity from jurisdiction] … The violent, criminal nature of the acts for which the russian federation was convicted also provides no argument for overriding immunity.”

Thus, no matter how carefully Ukrainian claimants craft their legal arguments, sovereign immunity seems to remain the unsurmountable obstacle. Thus, either modifying the law of sovereign immunity substantially to reflect today’s realities and/or putting in effective operation the International Compensation Mechanism for Damages Caused to Ukraine appear to be the principal avenues to pursue some sort of justice and secure some compensation for losses caused by the russian federation to Ukrainian entities and individuals.

By Hanna Marunych