Kreditprombank: Police Intervened in the Conflict Between Lagun and AMC "Praktyka"

Kreditprombank: Police Intervened in the Conflict Between Lagun and AMC "Praktyka"

According to the ruling of the Pechersky District Court of Kyiv dated 02 November, the Main Investigative Department of the National Police is conducting a pre-trial investigation in criminal proceeding No.12015100060007940 concerning the facts of alleged embezzlement in 2013 by the main shareholder of Delta Bank (who was Mykola Lagun, - ed.) “by prior collusion with an unidentified group of persons for the purpose of concealing and masking the illegal origin of funds obtained by criminal means through the offshore companies Kalouma Holdings Limited and Rabiturna Limited and others, banking institutions on the territory of Ukraine (PJSC ‘Kreditprombank’, ‘Bank 3/4’ and ‘Astra Bank’), CIS and Baltic countries” (quote) — funds of the depositors of these banks and subsequent legalization (money laundering) of the corresponding proceeds on an especially large scale, obtained by criminal means, in the amount of 241,8 million dollars.

The document states that 01.03.2013 the main shareholder of Delta Bank purchased 100% of Kreditprombank’s shares at a nominal value of 1 dollars. At the same time, in the same year the Cypriot company Kalouma Holdings Limited provided Delta Bank with three subordinated loans totaling 241,8 million dollars (21.03.2013 – for 96,4 million dollars; 14.05.2013 – for 73,3 million dollars; 20.05.2013 – for 72,3 million dollars).

“The prosecutor noted that there are grounds to believe that the officials of PJSC ‘Delta Bank’ used the company Kalouma Holdings Limited from March to May 2013 to launder 241,8 million dollars, since the origin of these funds is unknown,” reads the ruling of the Pechersky District Court of Kyiv dated 02.11.2017.

As Finbalance wrote, the company Kalouma Holdings Limited was mentioned in the GPU criminal proceeding No.12014100000000703 concerning the withdrawal from Delta Bank of 4,1 billion hryvnias of NBU refinancing.

According to the National Bank of Ukraine, as of 01.01.2013 the company Kalouma Holdings Ltd owned 47,78% of Kreditprombank’s shares. The beneficiaries of that company were Cargill, the EBRD and another 26 entities (among them the media also named Raiffeisen, Fortis, BNP Paribas, Commerzbank, etc.).

Kalouma Holdings Ltd represented the interests of foreign creditors of Kreditprombank, some of whose deposits were converted into the bank’s shares after the crisis of 2008-2009 as part of the institution’s debt restructuring for $400 million.

As of 01.01.2013, among Kreditprombank’s shareholders were also Homertron Trading (23,5%; ultimate beneficiary – Viktor Nusenkis) and Fintest Holding (28,72%; linked to the family of former Prosecutor General Hennadiy Vasyliev). It is believed there was a conflict between these bank shareholders, which complicated the possibility of restoring stable bank operations.

As the media wrote, M. Lagun purchased 100% of Kreditprombank’s shares for 1 dollars, while Delta Bank provided the institution with a liquidity-supporting loan worth hundreds of millions of hryvnias.

There was also information (1, 2) that the company Clever Management, associated with M. Lagun, with the assistance of Cargill (a minority shareholder in both Delta Bank and Kreditprombank) may have bought from Kalouma Holdings Ltd the claims on deposits totaling 134 million dollars for 19,3 million dollars. It was alleged that after this Clever Management supposedly transferred part of the claims to another company linked to M. Lagun – Rabiturna Ltd, which in turn presented them to Kreditprombank and the bank, it was reported, paid an invoice for 96,6 million dollars. After that, effectively the same amount appeared as a subloan from Kalouma Holdings to Delta Bank.

After Lagun’s acquisition of Kreditprombank, a conflict arose between him and one of the bank’s depositors – LLC AMC “Praktyka” (it was reported that it acted in the interests of US citizens; the state register lists Anatoliy Yurkevych as one of the ultimate beneficiaries) – AMC “Praktyka” filed a suit to invalidate a deposit agreement that had been in effect since the time when Kreditprombank was controlled by Kalouma Holdings Limited, Fintest Holding Limited and Homertron Trading Limited. In court the plaintiff demanded the bank return 217 million hryvnias, while the institution’s new owner, it was reported, offered to return only 20% of the deposit amount.

23.09.2015 The Commercial Court of Kyiv only partially satisfied the claim of LLC AMC “Praktyka” and terminated the deposit agreement, refusing to grant the claim for recovery of funds and to enforce recovery against assets. The court ruled that satisfaction of LLC AMC “Praktyka”’s creditor claims against Kreditprombank could occur only within the bank’s liquidation procedure and in the manner provided by the Law of Ukraine “On the System of Guaranteeing Deposits of Individuals” (in March-2015 the NBU declared Kreditprombank insolvent, and since June-2015 it has been in liquidation).

Court materials regarding the dispute (by the way, Kalouma Holdings Limited, mentioned at the beginning, appeared in it as a third party) noted that LLC AMC “Praktyka” within the process of Kreditprombank’s liquidation filed claims against the bank totaling 400 million hryvnias.

At the same time, the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes is considering a claim by Praktyka Asset Management Company LLC, City-State N.V., Crystal-Invest LLC and Prodiz llc against the state of Ukraine (in 2014 it was reported about a “price tag” of 500 million hryvnias). According to the plaintiffs, the state took virtually no measures to protect the rights of foreign and Ukrainian companies and citizens. They want the return of a deposit in the amount of 211 million hryvnias that was placed in Kreditprombank. The plaintiffs believe that M. Lagun transferred funds from Kreditprombank through the Cypriot companies Rabiturna Limited and Kalouma Holdings Limited to Delta Bank.

Reference

As Finbalance wrote, NABU detectives in criminal proceeding No.52016000000000119 established that in the period 2014-2015 officials of the NBU, abusing their official position in the interests of third parties, by prior collusion with officials of Delta Bank and a number of other banks (Kyivska Rus, Pivdenkombank, Misky Commercial Bank, Avtokrazbank, Terra Bank, Khreschatyk, Finance and Credit, Finrostbank, Integral-Bank) embezzled NBU funds totaling more than 12 billion hryvnias in favor of these banks through illegal refinancing.

According to NABU detectives, the embezzlement of NBU refinancing occurred using correspondent accounts of the mentioned banks that were opened at Meinl Bank Aktiengesellschaft (Austria), Bank Frick & CjAG (Liechtenstein), Bank Winter & CO AG (Austria), East-West United Bank SA (Luxembourg) by repaying creditor indebtedness of controlled enterprises that had arisen under loan agreements they concluded with the mentioned foreign banking institutions during 2011-2015 years.

According to the investigation’s version, the scheme was implemented as follows. A Ukrainian bank placed its funds on an account in a foreign bank. The latter, pledging those funds, issued a loan to a company somehow related to the Ukrainian bank. When the borrowing company did not repay the foreign bank, it debited the pledged funds from the Ukrainian bank’s correspondent account. By a "strange" coincidence, such debits often occurred even after the NBU had declared the relevant Ukrainian bank insolvent.

According to NABU detectives, a similar story occurred with Delta Bank (however, the debit of funds took place shortly before its official recognition as insolvent — in January 2015): from Delta’s correspondent account at Meinl Bank 87 million dollars were debited due to Silisten Trading Limited (British Virgin Islands) failing to meet its credit obligations to Meinl Bank.

Note that the scheme of Ukrainian banks placing funds in foreign banks with subsequent write-offs on the basis of pledge agreements due to third parties’ failure to meet credit obligations was used, among other things, to artificially improve Ukrainian banks’ capital adequacy indicators. After all, loans raised by third parties (companies) in foreign banks could return to Ukrainian banks in the form of subordinated credits, etc.

Whether similar schemes took place in the case of Delta Bank and other institutions, or whether the debiting of funds from accounts at Meinl Bank AG and Bank Frick & Co.AG was an example of a “classic” transfer of funds abroad, is for NABU detectives, as well as the SBU and the GPU, to understand and determine as part of the investigation of such criminal proceedings.

In August, Mykola Lagun told the newspaper Dzerkalo Tyzhnia. Ukraina that law enforcement authorities had not notified him of any suspicion.

“No, I have not been served a notice of suspicion in any criminal proceeding. However, I have no doubts about the legality of my actions and the actions of most of Delta Bank’s management.

Therefore, on my part I cooperate fully with the investigation, provide all necessary information I have, and appear for all law enforcement summonses. If there was corporate fraud at Delta Bank, I want to sort it out more than anyone else,” Lagun noted.

He said that “one must understand that the same operations can be interpreted differently, because much depends on context: when decisions were made, what tasks were being solved, taking into account forecasts and expectations and the regulatory framework that was in force at the time they were carried out.”

“All the billions and hundreds of millions that have been voiced boggle the mind, but do not withstand verification by facts and logic.

For example, the assumption that the refinancing received from the NBU was supposedly withdrawn from the bank and a fantastic sum of over 4 billion hryvnias is cited. At the same time, the statistics show quite different figures. It is enough to look at the bank’s balance in dynamics to see that in the period from the beginning of 2014 to the beginning of March 2015 (the date of the introduction of the temporary administration) client funds decreased by 5 billion hryvnias and by 650 million dollars. At the same time, the increase in refinancing loans from the NBU amounted to only 2,5 billion hryvnias. In addition, during the same period Delta Bank paid the NBU interest for the use of its resources in the amount of about 1,1 billion hryvnias. What kind of withdrawal of funds can be spoken of if the bank attracted 2,5 billion hryvnias of refinancing and paid interest to the NBU of 1,1 billion hryvnias, and then financed the outflow of client funds in the amount of 5 billion hryvnias and 650 million dollars?”

“This is simple logic and mathematics! Although I understand that the version about the withdrawal of billions sounds much more interesting, I do not want to upset anyone — it has nothing to do with reality. In addition, numerous expert examinations have been carried out within the mentioned criminal proceedings that confirmed the absence of losses to Delta Bank and the legality of such operations,” Lagun assured.

finbalance.com.ua