HEP initiated the procedure before the Washington-based International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSDI), the Croatian Economy Ministry confirmed on Monday.
HEP seeks 31.7 million euros without interest rates, and the claim was calculated on the basis of a difference in prices of electricity for the Krsko plant and electricity which the Croatian company had to obtain from substitute sources while it did not receive supplies from Slovenia.
The Croatian company says that over the last two and a half years it has tried to reach agreement with the Slovene side on the compensation. Since all such attempts have failed, HEP has decided on international arbitration, but insists that it does not rule out the possibility of the two sides reaching a settlement to the problem together.
The Krsko nuclear power plant was built in the early 1980s by Slovenia and Croatia while they were members of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The plant is currently co-owned by HEP and the Slovene power company ELES GEN.
The Slovene government made a unilateral move on 30 June 1998 stripping HEP of the entitlement to the plant, and stopped delivering electricity to the Croatian company. The break in the delivery lasted until 19 April 2003.
Intensive bilateral negotiations resulted in the initialling of a new inter-state agreement on Krsko on 19 December 2001, which regulated all claims and debts by the two sides.
However, the Slovene parliament was late in ratifying the agreement, and HEP began using power supplies from Krsko with a nine-month delay. This period was taken as the basis for damages claim.