Russian ‘Bad Debts’ Banks Expand Fraud Suits Against Ex-Top Managers and Ex-Owners
Dispute Resolution, 14 September 2020
Russian state-controlled lenders The Bank of Non-Core Assets (Bad Debts), created on the basis of National Bank Trust PJSC, and the bank FC Otkritie continue expending anti-fraud litigations against their Ex-Top Managers and Ex-Owners.
Recently, the lawsuit was filed in the United States against the former founder of financial group Otkritie Holding, Vadim Belyaev. The statement of claim entered the electronic database of the court in the New York area of Manhattan.
As follows from the court documents, the Russian banks Trust and FC Otkritie are the plaintiffs. They are seeking to “recover hundreds of millions of dollars of assets that have been misappropriated” through fraud. The plaintiffs note that Belyaev, who has citizenship of the Russian Federation and Cyprus, currently lives in the state of New York. According to the plaintiffs, Belyaev, “being the largest shareholder of the Otkritie Holding group, had full control over it and its subsidiaries.” He allegedly “repeatedly used this to withdraw assets from the structures belonging to the Otkritie Holding group for his own purposes and in the interests of his entourage.” The document states that for this purpose, Belyaev used “a network that included more than 150 shell companies.”
