MOSCOW, October 9 - RAPSI. Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has filed a motion with a New York court to dismiss the Universal Trading & Investment Co.'s (UTICo) complaint against her, according to a document made available to the Russian Legal Information Agency (RAPSI/rapsinews.com).

UTICo seeks $18.3 million from Tymoshenko, who headed United Energy Systems of Ukraine (UESU) in the 1990s.

Her lawyers claim that the complaint does not fall within the U.S. court's jurisdiction and should be turned down due to insufficient evidence that Tymoshenko broke the law.

UTICo submitted its lawsuit to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in November 2011. Since the defendant did not respond, UTICo submitted a motion in April to have the lawsuit considered in her absence.

In late 2005, as UESU's assets were unfrozen, UTICo made several abortive attempts to collect the awarded amount from the company and a number of individuals close to Tymoshenko, including her business partner Pavlo Lazarenko, also a former prime minister of Ukraine.

UTICo sued Tymoshenko after the company failed to involve her as a third party, having its own claims in the dispute between her, RosUkrEnergo's Swiss trader RUE and its co-owner Dmitry Firtash.

In October 2011, Tymoshenko was sentenced to seven years in prison for abuse of power based on a 2009 gas contract that she signed with Russia. She is serving her sentence in a Kharkov women's prison. She has been receiving treatment at a Kharkov hospital since May 2012. She was diagnosed with a spinal disc herniation.

In late March, a second case bringing further charges against Tymoshenko was filed with Kharkov's Kievsky District Court. The case deals with her activity at UESU.
She is accused of misappropriating funds.