Gazprom attenpted to change owners and default the company. In that case the gas contracts would have been void including its negotiated prices (under currebt market value) and the currency in euro instead of rubbels.
Is that illegal?
I wonder about rule of law. We talk about this as sacrosanct here in the "West".
It is funny that when push comes to shove (in my perception at least), we're quick to break the rules to get the outcome we want.
When say a 3rd world country does something like this in response to a "Western" multinational's actions (perhaps a controversial example would be Mossadegh nationalizing APOC), then the response we take it is pretty severe (often involving significant amounts of violence) and we portray ourselves as being "morally" rightous, often with the very same "rule of law" claim.
Just something I like to think about in this scenario. Not trying to push any agenda.
We definitely need to get rid of our double standards. All complaints about this from non-western countries are mostly correct.
"The German economy ministry said Gazprom Germania violated foreign trade law."
"Germany's economy ministry justified the takeover by saying it had not granted permission for the Gazprom Germania acquisition. Permission is required, the ministry said, if the investors are not from the European Union and "critical infrastructure" is involved."
And that's sufficient basis for a legal system to reassign ownership of assets?
Just for debate, lets say Google search is critical infrastructure and Google unilaterally took some action that upset the German economy ministry, would the legal system enable German authorities to take over assets that Google had within Germany and/or areas still under German control?
You’d have to dig into the specifics of German law in this case, but this is really unsurprising. Sales are routinely blocked and companies nationalised (with compensation, in civilised countries, though the fraud aspect could change this in this instance).
Gazprom Germania can believe the government is wrong and take it to the courts, but the legal argument seems sound.
German ministers can implement some draconian decisions, but they are operating in a large system of checks and balances, including independent courts and required parliamentary support for passing legislation.
The two scenarios are therefore roughly as similar as the arbitrary power of the owner of a privately held firm and the constrained power of a CEO of a publicly traded company.
I'm tempted to agree. However, I did raise a specific counter-example. In that case, a "proper democracy" (Mossadegh was democratically elected and presumably used entirely legal means to nationalize APOC assets), and then the long arms (CIA, MI6) of another set of "proper democracies?" undertook a violent coup to take back the assets. I'm not aware of how/whether those "long arms" interacted with the large system of checks and balances that you mentioned.
> Is that illegal? I wonder about rule of law. We talk about this as sacrosanct here in the "West".
Ignoring the geopolitical aspects and the “critical infrastructure” aspects: yes it’s illegal everywhere to unilaterally abrogate a contract or to use bankruptcy or such rules to evade contract.
Normally of course this would be handled through the courts, but the answer to your question is “yes”
Police seize drugs, for example.
Under some circumstances if your company operates essential infrastructure, yes. (And always had been, btw.)
Not making any point about your example, which was indeed despicable behaviour.