Slovakia won the arbitration lawsuit filed by Dutch-owned Achmea insurance company - the stakeholder of the Union health insurer - over Slovakia's plans to create a single health insurance company. Achmea is now obliged to pay more than million euro to Slovakia to cover legal fees, said the Finance Ministry press department on Thursday.
"The arbitration tribunal stated that the conception and implementation of the public health insurance system is fully under the remit of the state. Furthermore, the tribunal also stated that it doesn't have the power to interfere with democratic processes of a sovereign state and has no power to make a ruling on the dispute," claimed the ministry. By initiating the arbitration proceedings, Achmea intended to prevent the upcoming expropriation stemming from the Government's plans to institute a single health insurer. The project of unitary system is currently put on hold due to a lack of finances, although Prime Minister Robert Fico claimed on Wednesday (21 May) that the project is not yet dead.
