The Russian government and the National Capital Authority will face each other in court on Thursday after the NCA terminated its lease on a site for the new Russian embassy in Canberra.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Russia has told the court that it has spent just over $8 million to move its embassy from Canberra Avenue to what remains largely a green field in Yarralumla.
It wants the court to rule that it can't be kicked off the land - or it wants compensation for the $8 million.
The saga started on December 23, 2008 when the 99-year lease for the new plot was agreed. The condition was that work would start within 18 months and finish within three years (by December 24, 2011).
The Commonwealth government in the shape of the NCA argues that this clearly didn't happen.
When the lease was agreed, the Russian government paid the Commonwealth government $2.75 million, with an on-going rent of 5 cents a year. Russia would pay rates on the new property.
But that lease was terminated on August 16 this year - so the two sides meet in court, heavily lawyered-up.
It really has been a 14-year saga.
Builders have come and gone. Russia and the NCA have disagreed over countless issues, big and small, from the order in which different bits of the new embassy should be built to the shape of a fence to when trees on the site should be felled.
And there has been wrangling between the government in Moscow and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade over a move of the Australian embassy in the Russian capital.
It seems from the court papers (which The Canberra Times has seen) that DFAT and the Russian government have been engaged in some sort of negotiation whereby Russia is allowed so many visas for Russian advisors to oversee Australian construction workers in return for visas for Australians in Moscow.
At one stage, Russia wanted visas for 50 Russians to be involved in the construction of its new embassy in Canberra.
The upshot is that Russia is seeking a ruling that the NCA broke the terms of the original agreement when it halted the lease.
READ MORE:
It wants the lease continued - "the Notice of Termination is invalid and of no effect" as its lawyers say in the submission to court.
And if the lease isn't continued, Russia wants at least some of the $8 million
The NCA replies that (1) it acted correctly. But (2) if the court rules against it, it doesn't owe Russia anything near $8 million.
Much will turn (as so often in courts) on defining the word "reasonable".
Steve Evans
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
