UNITED NATIONS COMPENSATION COMMISSION PAYS OUT US$674.2 MILLION

The United Nations Compensation Commission today made available a total of $674,206,389 to the Government of the State of Kuwait for distribution to 10 successful claimants. Payment is being made in respect of 5 claims in category E (claims of corporations and public sector enterprises) and 5 claims in category F (claims of Governments and international organizations, including environmental claims).

With this round of payments, all environmental awards are now paid in full, marking the completion of the second phase of Governing Council decision 256 (S/AC.26/Dec.256 (2005)) which gave priority in payment to claims with outstanding amounts less than $500 million and environmental remediation claims. Although now paid in full, the environmental remediation claims remain subject to the Follow-up Programme for Environmental Awards established by decision 258 (2005) to ensure financial transparency and technical reasonableness in the implementation of approximately $4.3 billion of environmental remediation and restoration projects being undertaken by the Governments of Iran, Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Under decision 267 (S/AC.26/Dec.267 (2009)), the nine remaining category E and F claims, all awarded to Kuwait, will be paid on a quarterly basis in rounds of $10 million, in the order in which they have been approved.

This payment brings the overall amount of compensation made available to date by the United Nations Compensation Commission for successful claims of individuals, corporations, and Governments and international organizations to $28,908,814,044.

Successful claims are paid with funds drawn from the United Nations Compensation Fund, which is funded by a percentage of the proceeds generated by the export sales of Iraqi petroleum and petroleum products. This percentage, originally set at 30 per cent by the Security Council under its resolution 705 (1991), is currently at 5 per cent in accordance with paragraph 21 of Security Council resolution 1483 (2003).

Further information about the Commission, including the text of Governing Council decisions, can be found on the United Nations Compensation Commission website located at www.uncc.ch.

For use of the information media; not an official record

UNCC10/001E