On 21/04/2023 the state Arbitration Court of the Moscow Circuit delivered its Resolution on the high-profile “PSB case” for the recovery of losses from the ex-shareholders and top-managers of Promsviazbank, PJSC. The Circuit Court has upheld the rulings of the first and appellate instances and denied the cassation petition of the plaintiff.
In December 2018 Promsviazbank filed a claim with the Arbitration Court of the City of Moscow, seeking recovery of losses from former shareholders and top-management of the bank. The team of attorneys lead by Alexander Linnikov was engaged to represent an individual, who has been a member of the bank’s executive board prior to 2017. Tatiana Tsepkina, head of the Bankruptcy & Subsidiary Liability practice group, and Leonid Karpov, head of Litigation & Arbitration, handled the case as co-lead counsel.
The courts of first and appellate instances have not found sufficient ground for subsidiary liability of the L&P client and other members of the bunk’s executive board. The court of first instance has issued a ruling, which was subsequently upheld in appeal, that recognized facts of illegal conduct only in the actions of the bank’s beneficial owners — the brothers Alexei and Dmitri Ananiev — and Promsviaz Capital B.V., the banks shareholder, and found them jointly liable fir the total amount of 91.2 billion Rubles (roughly €1.6 billion). Both judicial instance found the proof of combined circumstances necessary to find the client of L&P liable for the bank’s losses insufficient. Moreover, both courts emphasized inadmissibility of retroactive application of the notorious provision of paragraph 2 clause 5 of art. 189.23 of the Bankruptcy Law, on which the plaintiff based its outrageous claim for joint recovery of losses from several defendants in the aggregate amount of over 16 billion Rubles!
The Arbitration Court of the Moscow Circuit has not found sufficient grounds for overruling or modification of preceding judicial acts. Therefore, the cassation petitions of Promsviazbank and the Bank of Russia were denied in full.
“The judgement of the Circuit Court, without any doubt, deserves approval and high professional praise. The court has actually overcome the problem of inconsistency of application of certain provision of the Bankruptcy Law and put an end to the disturbing tendency to retroactive application of the law. We believe that fair and correct from the standpoint of application of the law rulings on the “case of the Asian-Pacific Bank” and now the “PSB case” must lay the basis for a definitive position of the Supreme Court on this difficult category of disputes”, — says Tatiana Tsepkina.
