Geologist Joseph (Yossi) Langotsky is on his way to quick riches: after two years of an arbitration procedure against Beny Steinmetz, the arbitrator, Judge (emeritus) Boaz Okun decided this morning in favor of Langotsky, and ruled that Steinmetz's Scorpio was responsible for Langotsky losing his rights in the Tamar gas discovery.
Langotsky's claim against Steinmetz is estimated to be worth about NIS 400 million, equivalent to 1% of the value of Tamar. A meeting has been called to hear both sides, and will apparently take place in the next few days.
The two sides jointly held 5% of the drilling rights in the Tamar and Dalit offshore prospects, but Steinmetz withdrew a few months before drilling at the two sites commenced, and Langotsky lost his rights in the reserves, which turned out to be discoveries worth billions of dollars.
"Yossi Langotsky has become rich, but that isn't the point," Langotsky's attorney Adv. Yossi Segev told "Globes" today. "The point is that at last recognition has been given to the fact that he was the father of the idea of the oil and gas discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean Basin. Justice has been done."
And what about the Leviathan field? Langotsky has filed a suit about that against Ratio.
"This very much improves Yossi's claim over Leviathan. He claims that he was the father of the idea, and that he gave Ratio material to try to persuade them to participate in Tamar, and they took a license next to Tamar on the basis of the idea and discovered Leviathan. He is claiming all of Ratio's profit in Leviathan, which is billions of shekels."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 29, 2011
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