Russia's Masshtab Company, which manages the real estate assets of senator Vadim Moshkovich, may force Swedish furniture retailer IKEA to buy the land plot that hosts its Mega Teply Stan shopping mall in Moscow for $125 million, Kommersant business daily said on Wednesday.
The Moscow region arbitration court annulled IKEA's contract to rent the land because it did not fix the exact limits of the land site, Masshtab's General Director Ilya Gavrilov was quoted by Kommersant as saying.
Georgy Osipov, a counsel in the international law company Magisters was quoted as saying that if the verdict comes to force, Masshtab may oblige IKEA to buy the site at a market price of $125 million or sign a new contract.
It is not clear yet if IKEA will contest the verdict. The retailer has a month to do so under Russian legislation.
The 49-year rental contract between IKEA and the former owner of Masshtab was signed in 1999. It stipulated a one-time payment without further expenditure and said that Masshtab, as a land owner, would have to pay a 70 million ruble tax on the land in 2010, Gavrilov said.
MOSCOW, July 28 (RIA Novosti)
