Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) is open to negotiations with Swissport International Ltd (Switzerland), one of the world's largest providers of ground and cargo handling services at airports, on resolution of their issues in a legal manner. The airline company announced this in a statement, the Interfax Ukraine news agency reports.
"A constructive dialogue is possible if Swissport apologizes to UIA for slander and refutes those baseless accusations that were made against the airline company and its shareholders, which were made and continued to be made in the press throughout the court battle between the former partners," the airline company said in the statement.
UIA once again accused Swissport of attempting to involve the Ukrainian authorities and the European Union in resolution of the dispute between the two parties. The airline company stressed that the European Commission has already expressed its position of non-interference in this dispute.
"Swissport is not stopping its attempts to influence diplomatic relations between Ukraine and the European Union, it is openly threatening to disrupt the agreements on associate membership of Ukraine in the EU and the Single European Sky,” said UIA.
Regarding the operations of the Interavia company (formerly known as Swissport Ukraine), UIA said that stable and uninterrupted operation has been has established at the company and that the litigation will not affect its operation.
Earlier, Swissport said that it was ready to discuss resolution of the dispute over the ownership of the Interavia with UIA.
Swissport International acquired a 51% stake in the Interavia ground services company (which was later renamed as Swissport Ukraine) in 2006. The other shareholders of the company were UIA (29.4%) and ABH (19.6%). Swissport exercised its option to purchase ABN’s shares in the company in 2008, thus increasing its own stake to 70.6%.
UIA later accused its Swiss partner of attempting to dilute its stake in the company and went to court. Based on the court’s decision, UIA bought 70.4% of Swissport Ukraine from Swissport International in spring 2013. However, UIA’s former partners did not agree with these actions and continued litigation.
