The privatization of the Estonian state-owned national airline “Nordic Aviation Group”, which operates under the brands “Nordica” and “XFly”, could be delayed due to a lawsuit filed against the company.
The Estonian airline “Marabu” has appealed to the court with a claim worth 9.5 million euros, and therefore a temporary ban has been imposed on the sale of “Nordica” shares by court order.
“Marabu” announced that, being a new company, it signed a contract with “Nordica” and its subsidiary “Xfly” last year. The agreement stipulates that “Nordica” will provide “Marabu” aviation services, as well as perform regular flights with three “Airbus” airplanes, provide their crew, maintenance and insurance.
“Unfortunately, to a large extent, “Nordica” has not made these flights or postponed them, and as a result, our client has suffered significant losses,” said “Marabu’s” lawyer Markus Nien from the law firm “Sorainen”. He added that due to the actions of “Nordica”, losses of less than 9.5 million euros were caused to “Marabu”.
“Marabu” tried to find a pre-trial solution to compensate the losses, and the state, as the owner of the airline, is aware of the situation.
Nin stated that the negotiations with “Nordica” were not easy, however, the lawyer expressed hope that the parties could agree on a solution.
“Marabu” filed a lawsuit against “Nordica” in the Harju County Court in order to achieve asset preservation. Nien explained that it is about airplanes that cannot be sold by the state through privatization until the legal proceedings are resolved.
As he explained, usually the progress of such cases in court continues for two to four years.
The Ministry of Climate, which manages the state-owned “Nordica” shares, announced that it would not comment on the situation at this time.
It has already been announced that the Estonian Transport Department issued the air carrier license to “Marabu” in April of last year. The airline operates flights from Hamburg and Munich to resorts in Southern Europe and Egypt.
On February 29, the Estonian government authorized the climate minister Kristen Michal to privatize the state-owned airline “Nordic Aviation Group”.
The state owns all 400,000 “Nordica” shares, and the nominal value of each share is ten euros. The price of the shares will be determined in the order of competitive offers.
The Estonian state decided to sell “Nordic Aviation Group” because the company provides subcontractor services and there is no reason to believe that they will start offering flights from Tallinn, which means that the group does not have a strategic goal in the interests of the Estonian state, the government informed.
“Nordic Aviation Group” was established in 2015 after the previous Estonian national airline “Estonian Air” was terminated in connection with the opinion of the European Commission that the assistance provided by the Estonian state to the company was not legal.
At that time, Nordica’s main goals were to provide flight connections from Tallinn, to create competition in the aviation market and to operate in a commercially sustainable manner.
However, in 2019, the group stopped flying from Tallinn, because several international airlines started operating at the airport of the Estonian capital, which no longer allowed them to compete profitably.
Last year, it became known that the company suffered large losses in a short period of time. The special audit conducted by the international company “EY” concluded that the main reason for the financial difficulties of “Nordica” is poor management.
In December, it was announced that the Estonian Ministry of Climate has approached seven potential buyers who might be interested in purchasing “Nordica”. Michals previously assumed that the privatization process could start as early as March.
“Nordic Aviation Group” works with the brands “Nordica” and “Xfly”. It has two subsidiaries “Regional Jet” and “Nordic Aviation Advisory”.
2024-03-06 17:52:33
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