TIRANA, Jan. 20 – The Albanian government has paid a UK-based law firm about 2 million Euros to defend Albania in an arbitration dispute with Italian businessman Francesco Becchetti over waste management and renewable energy projects in Albania.
Under a decision made on December 9, 2015 but published only this week on the Official Gazette, the Albanian government decided to pay UK-based “Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co LLP” law firm €1.95 million to represent Albania in two arbitration cases initiated by Becchetti at the Washington-based International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), part of the World Bank. The amount is reported to be the highest ever the Albanian government has paid to a law firm in arbitration disputes.
The Italian businessman whose assets in Albania, including a local TV station, have been seized on suspicion of money laundering and is wanted in Albania, is claiming hundreds of millions of euros in compensation over the unfinished waste management and renewable energy production projects in Albania.
Becchetti is now based in London where he owns the Leyton Orient football club despite an international arrest warrant issued by the Albanian authorities.
The investigation into Becchetti’s activities was launched over a major hydroelectric plant project in southern Albania initiated in the late 1990s that was never built. Prosecutors say his companies issued artificially swollen bills of work that was never done and asked for value-added tax refunds through forged documents.
Becchetti’s Agon Channel which closed down late last year after two years of broadcasting had been highly critical of the government and portrayed the shutting down of the TV station as a free-speech issue.
