Kolomoisky to pay GBP 600,000 for revocation of PrivatBank lawsuit in London – bank

KYIV. April 6 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Mr. Justice Trower, the judge, at the hearings on March 29 and March 30 ordered Ihor Kolomoisky to pay GBP 600,000 into court and permitted late amendments to be made to Kolomoisky’s defence to PrivatBank’s claim, is due to start in June 2023 in London court, the bank has said.

“The Judge agreed with the Bank’s assessment that Mr. Kolomoisky had been “prepared to flout court orders and not litigate in an expeditious and reasonable manner,” and concluded that payment of £600,000 into court would secure PrivatBank’s costs of dealing with the amendments and “lays down a clear marker that [Mr. Kolomoisky] must observe the rules as to how litigation ought to be conducted,” PrivatBank said on its website on Wednesday.

The financial institution added that the lawyer representing the second defendant and ex-owner of the bank, Hennadiy Boholiubov, confirmed in court in London that Boholiubov has chosen not to give evidence at the trial of PrivatBank’s English claim against its former owners (and others).

Boholiubov also has not called any other witnesses of fact in support of his defence, PrivatBank said in the statement.

The financial institution said that Judge Trower, who will hear the case at trial, permitted certain witnesses in the case, including Kolomoisky, to give their evidence over video-link from Ukraine. Other witnesses, including most witnesses giving evidence on behalf of PrivatBank, will attend court in London to give evidence in person.

As reported, PrivatBank, nationalized in December 2016, a year later filed a lawsuit in the High Court of London against the ex-owners of Kolomoisky and Boholiubov, as well as six British companies allegedly associated with them, and obtained a court order for a worldwide freeze of their assets in excess of $2.5 billion.

However, on December 4, 2018, the High Court of London declared this lawsuit of PrivatBank inappropriate for its jurisdiction, considering that it was filed against British companies to involve Kolomoisky and Boholiubov in the proceedings. The bank appealed this decision, and on October 15, 2019, the Court of Appeal of England and Wales took its side. The court’s order for a worldwide freeze of assets remained in effect pending a judgment on the merits.

The judges of the Court of Appeal concluded that the bank had a sufficient case to litigate to fully recover the $1.9 billion (and interest of $3 billion) as claimed in the lawsuit. Kolomoisky and Boholiubov tried to appeal this decision with the court.

The first day of the preliminary hearing before the hearing on the merits took place on March 28, 2022, the court granted the defendants’ motion to postpone the hearing of the case at trial, which was supposed to begin in June 2022, due to the war in Ukraine.

In turn, the bank said that by June 2023, the claim would increase to almost $4.5 billion, as interest of about $500,000 daily is accrued, and the court order for the worldwide freeze of the defendants’ assets remains in force.

On December 18, 2016, the Government of Ukraine, referring to the proposal of the NBU and the 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 carried out, as a result of which they completely lost their shares, illegal, while PrivatBank and the state demand them to compensate for the damage. Currently, the parties are litigating both in Ukraine and in foreign jurisdictions.