THE European Commission (EC) is quiet about its position to an appeal by Russia�s diamond mining company Alrosa against an EC ruling cutting off trade between Alrosa and De Beers from January 2009.

Alrosa is appealing against a ruling issued by the EC on February 22, imposing on De Beers a commitment to phase its rough diamond sales agreement with Alrosa between 2006 and 2008 and to cease as from 1 January 2009 all direct and indirect purchases of rough diamonds from the Russian diamond miner.

Appeals against competition rulings by the Commission are protracted affairs, and paper submissions by plaintiffs and defendants take an average of nine months, before the judges in the case convene a physical hearing.

A decision on acceleration should take two weeks from filing, the ECJ spokesman said. The indefinite ban on trading is a potential obstacle to the cooperation in mining ventures which De Beers announced last week in Cape Town, South Africa, after the signing of a memorandum of understanding by De Beers chairman Nicky Oppenheimer and Alrosa CEO Alexander Nichiporuk.