The management board of the Russian Fortum, temporarily taken over by the Russian Federation, proposed to change the name of the company

MOSCOW, July 24 (Reuters) – The Russian power generation company owned by Finland’s Fortum, which has been temporarily run by Russian authorities, may change its name to Forward Energo, Fortum said.

The board of directors decided to bring the matter to the extraordinary meeting of shareholders.

“The change will not affect the company’s operations in any way and is related to certain regulatory issues regarding the use of intellectual property,” the statement reads.

In April, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree transferring the shares of Fortum and Germany’s Uniper in their Russian energy companies Fortum and Unipro to the Federal Asset Management Agency for temporary management. Moscow called the process a mirror image of the West, emphasizing that it was not about property rights, and entrusted its directors from Rosneft to run the Russian branches of both foreign owners.

Fortum called the actions of the Russian Federation a violation of international law and the rights of a foreign investor, and said that it had effectively lost control of the Russian company and, as a result, had written off these assets, recording a loss of €1.7 billion. In July, the company informed the Russian side that it planned to apply to an international court with Moscow for compensation for lost assets and investments in the Russian Federation.

FACTBOX-What foreign assets has the Russian Federation placed under temporary management. (Anastasia Lyrchikova)