Gassled partners to appeal ruling in $1.8 billion tariff row

OSLO (Reuters) - A group of international investors will appeal against a ruling by an Oslo court regarding Norway's decision to cut natural gas pipeline tariffs, a decision the investors said would cost them 15 billion crowns ($1.8 billion) in lost earnings by 2028.

Challenging Norway's reputation as a predictable place to do business, four firms owned by funds including Allianz (ALVG.DE), UBS (UBSG.VX), the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, argued that Norway illegally cut fees on the 8,000-km (5,000-mile) Gassled gas pipeline network.

"We have evaluated all aspects of the verdict from the District Court and based on that we have concluded that there is a good basis for an appeal," Trygve Pedersen, chief executive of Solveig Gas, told Reuters.

Infragas, Njord Gas Infrastructure and Silex Gas were also appealing, Solveig Gas said in a statement to the London Stock Exchange.

The four firms hold a combined 45 percent stake in Gassled. They bought their stakes in 2010 and 2011 from ExxonMobil (XOM.N), Total (TOTF.PA), Statoil (STL.OL) and Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L).

In September the Oslo district court ruled in favour of Norway, but said the Oil and Energy Ministry had not provided full information to the buyers and sellers regarding how the tariffs could be changed.

The court added that the ministry's officials at the time had been unaware of how easily this could be done.

"The ministry is to blame for this, but following an overall assessment the court concludes that the actions of the ministry's leadership can't be regarded as qualifying negligence which according to the law is a condition for triggering liability," the ruling said.

The losing party in a lawsuit in Norway will most often be told to pay the winner's legal fees. In the case of the Gassled lawsuit, however, the government was partly to blame for the fact it had gone to trial, the court said, ruling that the parties should pay their own legal costs.

Norway's Oil and Energy Ministry said it had no comment yet.

(Reporting by Stine Jacobsen, writing by Gwladys Fouche, editing by Terje Solsvik and Dale Hudson)