The Austrian Petrochemical Holding GmbH, the former majority shareholder of the RAFO Onesti refinery and its largest creditor, controlled and ruled by Russian businessman Iakov Goldovski, filed an application for the opening of an arbitration procedure with the Romanian state at the International Settlement Dispute Settlement Center (ICSID) in Washington, according to data analyzed by Profit.ro.

Petrochemical Holding GmbH accuses Romania of violating the Energy Charter Treaty, an international agreement concluded in 1994 between the states of Europe and the former Soviet Union, stating the principles of international energy cooperation and containing provisions on the protection of foreign investment in the energy sector. Among the largest and most notorious international litigation judged on the basis of the Energy Charter Treaty was the one concerning the expropriation by the Russian state of the Yukos oil giant, previously owned by businessman Mihail Hodorkovski, worth USD 50 billion.