SBU asked PrivatBank to stop filing new lawsuits against former owners

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With PrivatBank’s new management pursuing hundreds of millions of dollars in claims against the bank’s former owners in London, Tel Aviv and Delaware, the State Security Service, or SBU, has asked the bank to stop filing new lawsuits.

Volodymyr Horbenko, the deputy head of SBU, wrote that foreign lawsuits “may negatively affect the conduct of pretrial criminal investigations into banking offenses [in Ukraine].” Three years ago, American forensic auditor Kroll reported on a “large-scale and coordinated fraud” scheme that emptied $5.5 billion from PrivatBank under the ownership of Igor Kolomoisky and Gennadiy Boholyubov.

Concorde Capital’s Alexander Paraschiy notes that the SBU is currently headed by Ivan Bakanov, a former director of Kvartal 95 which broadcasts on Kolomoisky’s 1+1 TV. Paraschiy writes: “So far, it looks like PrivatBank’s board, which consists mostly of independent members appointed under the Poroshenko administration, is able to behave independently and ignore such strange recommendations of the SBU. In any case, such pressure on PrivatBank does not look positive for Ukraine’s investment case and its outlook for an IMF deal, which demands that PrivatBank and the government intensify their efforts to claim compensation from the bank’s former owners.”

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