Kazakhstan court authorizes enforcement of $1.4 billion arbitration ruling against Gazprom in favor of Ukraine’s Naftogaz
The Astana International Financial Centre Court authorized enforcement on Kazakhstan’s territory of an international arbitration ruling ordering Gazprom to pay $1.4 billion to Ukraine’s Naftogaz.
A Swiss arbitration court ruled in June 2025 in favor of Naftogaz in its dispute with Gazprom over a gas transit contract that went unfulfilled amid the full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine.
The case centered on a five-year contract for the transit of Russian gas to Europe, signed in 2019 — Naftogaz was to ensure uninterrupted transit while Gazprom was to pay regardless of the actual volumes transported.
Shortly after the full-scale war began, gas flows through Ukraine dropped sharply and Gazprom began paying only for the volumes actually transported. Naftogaz responded by filing a claim in arbitration.
Gazprom attempted to challenge the ruling but failed. Switzerland’s Federal Supreme Court upheld the arbitration ruling, ordering the Russian state corporation to pay the full amount owed, including interest and legal costs — a total of $1.37 billion at that point.
According to the Kazakh court’s ruling, the sum has since grown due to accrued interest and legal expenses.
Kazakhstan’s court is the first foreign jurisdiction to recognize and authorize enforcement of the Swiss arbitration ruling against Gazprom on the territory of another state, Naftogaz said.
Because Gazprom had not voluntarily complied with the Swiss court’s ruling, the Ukrainian company said it had been conducting an “international campaign to recover the debtor’s assets across various jurisdictions.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Naftogaz’s leadership for their “professional and prompt work in holding Russia financially accountable for everything it is doing against Ukraine and its Ukrainian companies.”
Gazprom had not commented on the Kazakh court’s ruling at the time of publication.
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