Georgian PM hails Washington arbitration ruling, says state was “absolutely right” in Anaklia Port dispute

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze on Thursday assessed the ruling delivered by the Washington-based arbitration tribunal regarding the Anaklia port case, which fully upheld the claims made by the Georgian Government regarding Anaklia Development Consortium, as “very fair and logical”.

In his remarks, Kobakhidze noted that the Government had created all the conditions for Anaklia Development Consortium but instead of finding an investor, they started a dispute with the state and sought to unjustly appropriate people's money.

“It's very simple - the state was absolutely right about the Anaklia Development Consortium, we created all the conditions, we even made an amendment to the Constitution to make the implementation of this project possible, but they could not attract a single investor. In return, they started a dispute with the state and tried to take people's money, budget money, unfairly”, the Prime Minister said.

“Of course, in this case, a fair decision was made and the arbitration made exactly the decision that corresponded to reality. We created all the conditions for the consortium to attract an investor, but they threw away this very important project for our country. Accordingly, the arbitration made an absolutely logical decision”, he concluded.

The Georgian Ministry of Justice on Thursday announced that the leaders of the opposition Lelo party Mamuka Khazaradze and Badri Japaridze lost their arbitration case concerning the Anaklia Port project at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Washington D.C.