UK court freezes $2.5bn of Ukrainian oligarch Kolomoisky’s assets in PrivatBank ruling

UK court freezes $2.5bn of Ukrainian oligarch Kolomoisky’s assets in PrivatBank ruling
UK court freezes $2.5bn of Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky's assets in PrivatBank ruling / facebook
By bne IntelliNews December 21, 2017

A UK court has slapped a worldwide freeze on $2.5bn worth of assets of Ukraine’s most powerful oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky and his business partner Gennadiy Bogolyubov, PrivatBank said in a statement.

The December 19 decision was the result of one of more than 400 lawsuits brought against PrivatBank. The two men used to own the bank before it was nationalised in December 2016.

PrivatBank has since descended into a legal morass as former owners are suing the government claiming the nationalisation was illegal, while the now state-owned bank is suing the oligarchs to try and recover some $5.6bn stolen from the bank using dodgy related party loans.

The December 19 decision was the result of a case brought by the state managers of PrivatBank against Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov in the High Court in London for embezzlement.

The order puts a global freeze on the two oligarchs’ assets, including six companies that they own or control, the bank said.

The previous NBU central bank governor Valeriya Gontareva told the owners that they have to return the missing funds by this August or face criminal charges. Finance Minister Oleksandr Danylyuk told bne IntelliNews in April: “No one is going to be allowed to get away with stealing $5bn.” However, apart from the case in London no criminal charges have been brought in Ukraine against the oligarchs.

PrivatBank said in a statement cited by the Kyiv Post: “The freezing order was granted on the basis of detailed evidence put to the court that Messrs Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov extracted almost $2bn from the bank through a particular series of dishonest transactions, which had the effect of transferring the funds to companies that they secretly owned or controlled.”

Law firm Hogan Lovells is representing Ukraine in the London court battle. The same firm represented Kazakh BTA Bank in a bank fraud case against Mukhtar Ablyazov, the lender’s former chairman.

The NBU has hired corporate sleuths AlixPartners and Kroll to conduct a forensic audit of insider lending at the bank. Kolomoisky has challenged the legality of using these firms and a Kyiv court ruled on December 15 that the decision was indeed illegal. The NBU said it would appeal the decision.

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