The departure of Nokian Tyres from the Russian market has become closer: Tatneft has received the consent of the FAS to purchase the plant and other assets of the Finnish tire company. The parties reached an agreement on the deal in October last year, and Nokian Tyres expected to gain about €400 million. Nevertheless, now the company sees uncertainty about the terms and conditions of the transaction, as well as the prospects of closing it in principle due to the need for coordination with the authorities. Lawyers remind that the deal still needs to be approved by a government commission.

The Federal Antimonopoly Service has approved three petitions of Tatneft to acquire from Nokian Tyres a 100% stake in the authorized capitals of Nokian Tyers LLC, Hakka Invest LLC and Nokian Tire LLC, the antimonopoly service told Kommersant. The agreement on the sale of the Russian business to Nokian was signed in October 2022, and as the Finnish tire company reported, the expected transaction price was to be about €400 million. The FAS approval process began in December.

On February 7, Nokian Tyres reported in its fourth quarter reports that the deal was subject to approval by the Russian authorities. Because of this and "other conditions", significant uncertainty is created regarding the term, terms of the transaction and its closure, it was noted in the reports.

The FAS noted that if the provisions of the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 618 apply to this transaction, then it can be made only after obtaining the permission of the government commission for monitoring the implementation of foreign investments. According to Kommersant, the documents must first be considered by the commission of the Ministry of Finance. Kommersant sent a request to the Ministry.

NSP lawyer Ivan Chuvakin notes that obtaining FAS approval is not mandatory for submitting documents to the government commission, although it may be an advantage. It does not seem that Presidential Decree No. 520 of August 5, 2022 (on the need to obtain special permission from the President of the Russian Federation) applies to Nokian assets, says INGVARR senior adviser Dmitry Dedov. Accordingly, if there are no assets in Nokian's assets that meet the criteria of Decree No. 520, then it remains only to obtain the approval of the government commission under Decree No. 618.