JUDGMENT FOR HUGE SUM.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20024, 4 September 1930, Page 16

JUDGMENT FOR HUGE SUM.

AWARD AGAINST RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT. I (BRITISH OITICIAX, WISEUSS.) RUGBY, September 2. The Arbitration Court, which has been considering the dispute between the Soviet Government and Lena Goldfields, Limited, an English company, gave judgment to-day 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 4:13,000,000. This was the considered judgment of the Court, which consisted of Dr. Otto iStutzer, of Germany, described as the super-arbitrator, and Sir Leslie Scott, appointed by Lena Goldfields. They sat at the Law Courts, London. At a preliminary hearing in Germany the Soviet Government was represented, but it had taken no part in the present proceedings. The judgment ran into several thousand words, in the oourse 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 re>mained bound by the clause. The company had long had large interests in Russia and employed about 15,000 hands. 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, prevention from selling Lena products in the Russian markets, failure to secure for the company 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 property from larceny, robbery, and asrson.