TIRANA, July 25 – A tribunal of the International Center for Investigation Disputes (ICSID), a United Nations body, has ordered Albania to pay 110 million euros to a group of Italian investors formed by Italian businessman Francesco Becchetti along with his companies Hydro and Costruzioni, his mother Liliana Condomitti and associates Mauro de Renzis and Stefania Grigolo for expropriating a television company.
The court justified the decision with finding that there was evidence this group was the target of a politically motivated campaign.
Understandably, investors had claimed a sum of 650 million euros as compensation for a number of measures aimed at their investments in the domestic media sectors, hydroelectric power and waste sector, including freezing of assets, tax audits and criminal proceedings.
Investors alleged that the measures were part of a state-planned harassment campaign, partly motivated by the criticisms their television station Agonset had for the successive Albanian governments.
Current state Prime Minister Edi Rama announced in 2015 that “we have declared a war” against the owners of Agonset. The television station later stopped functioning after its equipment was sequestrated by the government.
According to Becchetti, the ICSID court unanimously found Albania responsible for the illegal expropriation of Agonset in contravention of the Italian-Albania bilateral investment treaty and ordered it to pay plaintiffs €110 million in direct damages, plus costs and interests.
The court is alleged to have found that the evidence firmly supports the conclusion that seizures by the government were the climax of a political campaign against the plaintiffs.
