BRUSSELS, Sept 7 (AFP) - Belgium on Tuesday upheld the seizure of a giant Ukrainian cargo plane blocked since August 18 at a military airfield near Brussels in connection with a long-running commercial row.
A Belgian court declared that an action brought by the owner of the plane, the Ukrainian company Antonov Design Bureaus (ADB) to have the seizure overturned had been "admissible but not founded," according to Belgian news agency Belga.
The plane, which had been originally been chartered by Belgium and NATO to fly equipment to Afghanistan, was seized following a lawsuit by a company called TMR energy, based in Cyprus.
It belongs to the publicly owned Ukrainian plane manufacturer, Antonov Design Bureau.
TMR Energy is trying to claw back nearly 50 million dollars (41 million euros) from the Ukrainian state it says it is owed by ADB following the alleged breaking of a contract dating back to 1993.
ADB's lawyers had pleaded that the company had a "distinct legal personality" separate to that of the Ukrainian state, according to the Belga.
But the court rejected the claim, declaring that "the Ukrainian state does have a holding in its Antonov fleet."
The crew of the Antonov-124 Ruslan, one of the world's largest aircraft, had agreed to leave the aircraft after refusing to disembark for three days.
The Ukrainian company has seven Antonov cargo planes in all, two of which have now been seized following TMR's action, one in Brussels and the other in Newfoundland in Canada.