Page 18 - bne_newspaper_July_27_2018

Eastern Europe
July 27, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 18
Ukrainian oligarchs Kolomoisky and Boholiubov challenge London court jurisdiction in PrivatBank dispute
bne IntelliNews
Ukrainian oligarchs Ihor Kolomoisky and Hennadiy Boholiubov have challenged the applicability of jurisdiction of the High Court
of Justice in London in considering the case concerning Ukraine’s largest lender PrivatBank, nationalised in late 2016.
Earlier, the High Court of Justice ruled to estab- lish a weekly limit of £20,000 on Kolomoisky’s personal expenses. In December, the same court ruled to freeze worldwide assets of the former owners, including six companies controlled by Ko- lomoisky and his partner Boholiubov, worth more than $2.5bn.
According to an unnamed source cited by Interfax news agency, preliminary hearings on the oli- garchs' claim will start on July 25 and will last five or seven days. In addition, the court will consider the application of the defendants to remove pre- cautionary measures to freeze their assets. The final decision on the relevant statements will be made in October, according to the source.
According to previous statements from Kolomoisky, the London court is the jurisdiction "where the parties will have to openly show everything, tell how it was and what was not".
"I think we will get to this trial in the court, but
it will not be soon and most likely it will happen under another government in Ukraine," he added, underlining that he personally is "very optimistic" about litigation over PrivatBank.
Meanwhile, the oligarchs have challenged the bank’s takeover by the state, as well as the Na- tional Bank of Ukraine’s (NBU)'s demands to restructure and repay debts to related parties. Kolomoisky and Boholiubov have filed more than 400 lawsuits against the NBU, PrivatBank and the country’s finance ministry.
According to the NBU, the terms of the voluntary restructuring of the loans of former owners of PrivatBank expired in July 2017, however, the for- mer owners have failed to fulfil their obligations. Earlier, the nation's finance ministry published
a letter signed by Kolomoisky and Boholiubov, in which the businessmen commit to carrying out
a restructuring programme by mid-2017. If they could successfully restructure 75% of the portfo- lio, the NBU said it would consider the possibility of extending the restructuring for the remaining 25% until late 2017.
However, a senior NBU official recently told bne IntelliNews on condition of not being identified that the regulator's position in courts is weak due to the fact that the letter signed by the billionaires has no legal force under Ukrainian legislation.
The fact that Ukrainian businessmen Ihor and Hryhoriy Surkis recently won a legal battle against the bail-in of their deposits of UAH1.1bn (around $40mn) during the nationalisation of PrivatBank adds to the regulator's woes. The funds were deposited at PrivatBank by members of the Surkis