London court obliges former owners to pay $900 mln to Bank Trust

MOSCOW, Jan 23 (PRIME) -- The High Court of Justice in London has approved a suit of Russia’s bank of non-core assets, formed on the basis of National Bank Trust, against former owners of Bank Trust, and obliged them to redeem U.S. $900 million to the bank, Bank Trust said in a statement on Thursday.

“The High Court of Justice in London has satisfied a suit of Bank Trust against its former owners. The court acknowledged that Ilya Yurov, Sergei Belyayev, and Nikolai Fetisov are responsible for the bank’s failure in December 2014 and are to pay a compensation of $900 million. The decision was made on January 23, 2020,” the statement read.

The court discovered that the three owners had have carried out fraudulent operations for many years before the bank’s failure, including provision loans to offshore companies they control using the bank’s money. When bank was in a pre-bankruptcy state, the managers did not notify the regulator of that, and decided to implement a scheme to raise deposits with the help of an expensive advertisement campaign using Bruce Willis, Bank Trust said.

The central bank launched a bailout of Bank Trust in December 2014, and Bank Trust filed the suit against former owners in February 2016.

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