The High Court of London has expanded the possibilities for a worldwide seizure of the assets of ex-shareholders of Privatbank Igor Kolomoisky and Gennady Bogolyubov. This is stated in the court decision in case BL-2017-000665, the press service of Privatbank reports.
The decision concerns a case in which Privatbank seeks to return the funds withdrawn from the bank on the eve of nationalization and repay the bank’s outstanding refinancing obligations.
Privatbank petitioned for the arrest of the defendants’ assets for the period of consideration of the case in the amount of $3 billion, and in 2017 the High Court of London ruled in favor of the bank. Thus, a worldwide arrest of the assets of Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov, as well as six companies that are likely controlled by them, was imposed.
By its decision dated January 31, 2023, the court, at the request of Privatbank, decided to actually expand the possibilities for worldwide seizure of assets.
“The recent decision of the English court to grant permission to a bank to receive seizure orders abroad and to require defendants to provide further information on the disclosure of assets, which will allow monitoring the execution of seizure orders, is an extremely positive development for the bank,” the press release said. service of Privatbank.
“I am convinced that, in relation to the first defendant, the disclosure of information about bank accounts is necessary for the proper monitoring of the activities of the worldwide asset seizure (WAA) and is proportionate. … This, in my [the judge’s] opinion, is a legitimate attempt by the plaintiff to obtain the disclosure of easily identifiable assets that have always been in the BAA zone and were subject to disclosure as such, ”the judgment notes.
PrivatBank believes that the ruling will help ensure an effective appeal for enforcement of any court decision that will be received after the hearing on the merits, which is due to begin in June 2023.
In December 2016, the government of Ukraine, at the suggestion of the National Bank and the shareholders of Privatbank, the largest of which at that time were Igor Kolomoisky and Gennady Bogolyubov, decided to nationalize Privatbank.
The bank passed into state ownership, the state spent more than 155.3 billion hryvnias on its additional capitalization. Based on the results of the audit, the Kroll detective agency confirmed that Privatbank was the object of large-scale fraudulent activities before nationalization, which led to losses of $5.5 billion.
The ex-shareholders of the bank are challenging the decision on nationalization in a number of Ukrainian and foreign courts.
In December 2017, PrivatBank filed a lawsuit in the London High Court against Igor Kolomoisky, Gennady Bogolyubov, as well as Teamtrend Ltd., Trade Point Agro Ltd., Collyer Ltd., Rossyan Investing Corp., Milbert Ventures Inc. and ZAO Ukrtransitservice Ltd, which are likely owned or controlled by them.
A year later, the court recognized that PrivatBank filed a lawsuit in order to obtain the jurisdiction of the London court to file a lawsuit against Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov. At the same time, the judge recognized that the bank had reasonable claims against Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov for at least several million dollars.
At the same time, the court issued an order to seize the assets of the ex-owners of the bank and the six companies in the amount of more than $2.5 billion worldwide.
Based on the results of the meeting on January 19, 2018, the High Court of London extended the order to seize the assets of the former owners of Privatbank, Igor Kolomoisky and Gennady Bogolyubov, until the next relevant court order. At the same time, the court ordered the defendants to disclose information about all their assets to a limited circle of persons directly involved in the consideration of the case.
