PrivatBank has recently issued a new claim in the Cypriot courts seeking damages of US$5.5 billion in respect of schemes bearing all the hallmarks of fraud and money laundering which the Bank alleges were perpetrated by its former owners, Igor Kolomoisky and Gennadiy Bogolyubov, one of its former senior executives, Timur Novikov, and two Cypriot companies, PrimeCap (Cyprus) Limited and Duxton Holdings Limited.

The new claim was served in Cyprus on 3 April 2020, after the Cypriot court granted a document preservation order against PrimeCap. Service on the overseas defendants will follow in due course.

The Bank's claim relates to two sets of transactions that the Bank alleges were unlawfully implemented between 2013 and 2016 at the direction of its former owners with the assistance of the other defendants, which involved vast sums being paid to companies owned and/or controlled by Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov pursuant to what the Bank alleges were sham loan agreements, none of which have been repaid.

Those transactions include a scheme by which US$2.34 billion was routed to a Cypriot company connected to the former shareholders of the Bank, Duxton Holdings Limited, in almost daily tranches of US$30 million over a four month period in 2013.

This claim brings the combined amount claimed by PrivatBank against Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov in England, Cyprus, the US and Israel to a total of over US$10 billion. The Bank remains committed to obtaining full compensation from its former owners in respect of the damage caused to it whilst under their ownership and control, and achieving justice both for the Bank and for Ukrainian taxpayers.