The High Court of Justice in London held a five-day hearing of the lawsuit of PrivatBank JSCCB against Igor Kolomoysky, Gennady Bogoliubov and six companies, controlled by them, the press office of PrivatBank informs, ET reports.
The bank stated that shortly before the beginning of hearing the case, the defendants refused from the half of arguments, which they planned to present.
“Such concessions included the acknowledgement that the bank” has a sufficient for court proceeding case against them about fraud and that there is a risk that they will embezzle their assets, if it is not forbidden for them by the court order on assets forfeiture”, the message says.
It is noted that the hearing in the High Court started on Wednesday, July 25, and ended on Tuesday, July 31, 2018, involving Judge Justice Fancourt. During the hearing, PrivatBank provided the High Court with arguments and evidence for the lawsuit and the court order on the worldwide forfeiture of assets, which was issued for securing the suit.
“The lawsuit, as the basis for the court order on asset seizure, including the statements that Kolomoysky and Bogoliubov illegally embezzled 1.9 million dollars from the bank in 2014 through concluding several fraudulent transactions, resulting in transfer of funds to the companies, which they secretly owned or controlled”, the press office noted.
According to the leading attorney of PrivatBank Stephen Smith, between April 2013 and 2014, Kolomoysky and Bogoliubov organized the fraud scheme on disbursing loans to 46 borrowers, making payments under 54 fraudulent “contracts” for delivery of huge volumes of goods, such as the manganese ore, polyethylenterephtalate and apple juice concentrate, and the refinancing schemes, targeted at concealing fraudulent acts.
It is alleged that the loans were disbursed without proper confirmation or conducting checks, while the delivery contracts were concluded as the cover-up, which allowed making payment of 1.9 bln dollars to six companies: Teamtrend Limited, Trade Point Agro Limited and Collyer Limited (all the companies were created in the United Kingdom), and Rossyn Investing Corp, Milbert Ventures Inc and ZAO Ukrtransitservice LTD (all the companies were created on the British Virgin Isles).
Neither company has webpages, offices, employees, warehouses, workforce or any other public presence.
“Such scheme was the realization of the idea of Kolomoysky and Bogoliubov, which were the owners of more than 90% shares of the bank and members of its supervisory board at that time”, the press office noted.
It should be reminded that in December 2017, PrivatBank filed a lawsuit to the High Court of Justice in London against Kolomoysky, Gennady Bogoliubov as well as Teamtrend Ltd., Trade Point Agro Ltd., Collyer Ltd., Rossyan Investing Corp., Milbert Ventures Inc. and ZAO Ukrtransitservice Ltd., which are allegedly owned or controlled by them.
The claimant achieved that as the interim measure the court issued the order on the worldwide seizure of assets of former bank owners and specified six companies, totaling over USD 2.5 billion.
Meanwhile, the court obligated Kolomoysky and Bogoliubov to disclose information on all their assets to the limited circle of persons, which directly participate in the case hearing.
