As previously announced, in 2015 JSC CB “PrivatBank” (the “Bank”) initiated arbitration proceedings against russia under the 1998 Ukraine-russia Bilateral Investment Treaty. Although at the time russia deliberately chose to abstain from the proceedings, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague (the “PCA”) issued an Interim Award dated 24 February 2017 and a Partial Award dated 04 February 2019 in favour of the Bank, accepting the Bank’s main positions on several jurisdictional issues and confirming russia’s unlawful expropriation of the Bank’s assets in Crimea.

In 2019, russia resumed its participation in the case and requested the revocation or set-aside of the Tribunal’s awards before the Court of Appeal of The Hague in the Netherlands (the “Court of Appeal”). On 19 July 2022, the Court of Appeal rejected in their entirety russia’s challenges against those arbitral awards rendered in the Bank’s favour.

The arbitral proceedings currently are in the quantum phase, in which the Tribunal will rule on any damages due to the Bank by russia. The final hearing is scheduled to commence on 10 October 2022. The Bank is confident that the Tribunal has been furnished with all the required evidence, including reports from renowned experts in the quantification of damages, which will allow the Tribunal to accurately quantify the substantial losses that the Bank has suffered.

On 03 October 2022, the PCA published the Interim Award and the Partial Award, as well as copies of several Procedural Orders issued by the Tribunal in the course of the proceedings which can be found at https://pca-cpa.org/ru/cases/130/.

PrivatBank is represented before the PCA by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan UK LLP and Asters.