Page 31 - GEORptMar19

8.1.4 Banks specific issues
Georgia’s TBC Bank claims “dark PR” as it fights laundering probe
Loans written off ‘without grounds’
“Rumors... are nonsense”
Regulatory fine
Georgia’s London-listed TBC Bank is under investigation for “activities [that] clearly showed the characteristics of legalization of illegal income, i.e. money laundering, and other illicit acts”, according to a statement from the Office of the Prosecutor General (POG) of Georgia.
Largest Georgian lender TBC— included in the London Stock Exchange’s FTSE 250 Index since June 2017—responded to the announcement by saying it is the target of “dark PR” and a “deliberate attempt to discredit and tarnish its reputation”.
POG is probing events said to have occurred more than a decade ago. It said that in May 2008 two companies, Samgori Trade LLC and Samgori M LLC, received a loan worth $17mn from TBC, without the provision of any security and through an accelerated procedure. “As soon as the loaned funds were credited in the accounts of the companies, [TBC co-founder and chairman] Mamuka Khazaradze and [TBC co-founder and deputy chairman] Badri Japaridze borrowed the same amount which TBC Bank had lent to the aforementioned companies for the purpose of financing working capital,” POG added.
By the end of 2008, said POG, TBC wrote off the loans to the Samgori companies without any grounds and earlier than stipulated by banking regulations, prior to moving them to an external balance account and, in 2012, exempting the companies from liabilities owed when agreeing to transfer the liabilities to an offshore company. The offshore entity was said to have not yet made any repayment on the loan.
The loans “were written off in such a manner that these companies have not paid any commissions and these loans have not been repaid to the bank”, the prosecutors said.
Statements made by Khazaradze’s lawyer show that the bank chairman has stated that the loan made to him and Japaridze has been repaid from borrowings provided by unspecified natural persons. But, without explaining the point further, POG noted that Khazaradze and Japaridze were yet to repay a loan from the Samgori firms.
“The rumors about money laundering are nonsense. The operation was absolutely open and transparent,” Zviad Kordzadze, Khazaradze’s lawyer, argued in comments reported by Georgia Today on January 9. He confirmed to the publication that Khazaradze had been questioned by POG representatives several days prior to the new year.
The owner of the Samgori companies, Vakhtang Tsereteli, said in a Facebook post quoted by commersant.ge that the borrowing of $17mn from TBC and the transfer of the lending contract to make the offshore company the debtor was legitimate business.
TBC Bank subsidiary TBC Bank JSC, meanwhile, on January 9 released a statement through the London Stock Exchange saying it had been fined Georgian lari (GEL) 1mn (GBP295,000) by Georgia’s central bank, the National Bank of Georgia, over historic “certain transactions” in 2007 and
31 GEORGIA Country Report March 2019 www.intellinews.com