Cyprus court invites Kolomoisky to consider PrivatBank's claim

The Limassol District Court (Cyprus) invites Ihor Kolomoisky to consider the claim of the state-owned PrivatBank seeking damages in the amount of $5.5 billion. The announcement in the Holos Ukrainy newspaper was published by the lawyers of PrivatBank from Scordis, Papapetrou & Co.

"According to the court order dated June 15, 2021, if the message about participation in the case is not filed within 30 days from the date of its publication of this message, the case will be considered in the absence of Defendant 1 [Igor Kolomoisky]," the announcement said.

As reported, on April 3, 2020, PrivatBank filed a new lawsuit with the Cypriot courts, in particular in the Limassol District Court, seeking damages in the amount of $5.5 billion in relation to schemes that carry all the signs of fraud and money laundering, which, according to the bank, were committed by its former shareholders Kolomoisky and Hennadiy Boholiubov, ex-first deputy head of the board Tymur Novikov and two Cypriot companies: PrimeCap (Cyprus) Limited and Duxton Holdings Limited.

The claim in the Limassol District Court relates to two sets of transactions that the bank claims were unlawfully carried out between 2013 and 2016 at the direction of its former owners with the assistance of other defendants and included significant amounts paid to companies owned and/or controlled by Kolomoisky and Boholiubov. The bank claimed they were fictitious loan agreements, none of which were repaid.

In particular, these transactions include a scheme under which $2.34 billion was sent to the Cypriot company Duxton Holdings Limited, associated with the former shareholders of the bank, in almost daily tranches of $30 million for a four-month period in 2013, the financial institution said.

After this lawsuit, the total amount of claims declared by PrivatBank against Kolomoisky and Boholiubov in England, Cyprus, the United States and Israel exceeded $10 billion.

On December 18, 2016, the government of Ukraine, referring to the proposal of the NBU and former shareholders of PrivatBank Kolomoisky and Boholiubov, decided to nationalize this largest financial institution on the Ukrainian market. The ex-owners of the bank consider the nationalization illegal, as a result of which they completely lost their shares, while PrivatBank and the state demand compensation from them. The parties are currently in litigation both in Ukraine and in foreign jurisdictions.