As Our Version previously reported, Ilya Yurov was arrested at the Kiev Boryspil airport. Former Chairman Board of Directors of OJSC National Bank"Trust" flew to the capital of Ukraine on November 20 on personal business. At the border control, Ilya Yurov presented his passport as a citizen of the Republic of Cyprus. After which he was arrested as being in international wanted list through Interpol at the request of Russian law enforcement agencies.
Now the ex-banker is facing extradition proceedings, which could drag on for months, or even years. In connection with which, of course, everyone who followed the history of "Trust" in last years, vague suspicions arise about the real reasons for the appearance Ilya Yurov in Ukraine with a Cypriot passport.
The fact is that such an experienced person, especially since he has been waging a fierce judicial war for several years, could not help but calculate all the risks. There are two traditional options left. The first – Ilya Yurov was simply “framed” - lured to Ukraine and guaranteed security. This scenario involves milking the client in exchange for freedom. But there is another, more “calm”, but advanced version. It is very difficult to fight Interpol's wanted list. At the global level. But locally it’s quite possible. The scheme has been worked out. The client surrenders to justice in the jurisdiction where he is provided with guarantees of successfully challenging this arrest in court. After which the client receives not just freedom, but immunity from other attempts at arrest. It is clear that freedom of movement in this case is very limited. But this is still freedom, which, moreover, makes it possible to fight for “complete liberation.” Ukraine is a good option for resolving such issues. And not only in court. And it certainly looks much better than the prospects that Lately appeared for Ilya Yurov in jurisdictions more familiar to “business emigration”. Everything is very, very bad there.
Siege of "Trust"
Since December 22, 2014, Trust Bank has been undergoing a financial rehabilitation procedure. From the very beginning, it began to resemble a real military operation against the former owners, which was conducted according to all the rules of military strategy on different fronts and according to different rules. The scale of the campaign is impressive. In the first half of 2015 alone, more than 20 lawsuits were filed on behalf of the new Trust managers against companies registered in offshore jurisdictions. The total volume of claims amounted to more than 32 billion rubles and 94 million dollars.
But this is a mere trifle compared to the scale of the financial holes that were discovered by the Trust sanators from the Otkritie FC bank. To carry out the rehabilitation, Otkritie received a loan from the DIA for 129 billion rubles at a preferential rate. This amount was used to close the hole in the balance sheet.
Naturally, the reasons for these losses were very quickly transferred to the genre of criminal acts. On the Russian front, a criminal case against the group is currently being investigated former owners and top managers of Trust, who are accused of fraudulent transactions with companies registered in Cyprus. The original purpose of these operations was to conceal the financial losses of the credit institution. But at some point, according to the investigation, these operations began to be traced character traits withdrawal of funds, when the money ultimately ended up in the accounts of the former owners.
On December 17, 2015, three of them - Ilya Yurov, Nikolay Fetisov And Sergey Belyaev were arrested in absentia by decision of the Tverskoy Court of Moscow. After which the main front predictably moved to London, following the main characters of the story.
Here, no criminal charges were brought against them, nor were there any attempts to extradite the ex-bankers. The hostilities began when in January 2016, legal representatives of Trust (which is controlled by the sanatorium) obtained a decision in an English court to sell a portfolio of Moscow real estate, which formally belongs to third parties, but in fact is controlled by the old owners of the bank.
This was done by convincing the judge that the transaction was concluded on non-market conditions and involved the cashing out of real estate assets and the withdrawal of funds received. In February 2016, an English court decided to seize property controlled by the families of the bank's former owners. After which, on April 11, 2016, a lawsuit in the amount of $830 million was filed in the High Court of London against the former owners of the bank - Ilya Yurov, Nikolai Fetisov and Sergei Belyaev, as well as their wives. The former, according to the lawsuit, issued loans to companies controlled by them. And the latter helped launder these funds.
The Talented Mr. Worsley
By the time virtual arrests of people were made in Moscow, and real arrests of assets in London, the new shareholders of Trust found themselves in the hands of a terrible weapon. It was Mister Benedict Worsley(Worsley), also known as simply Ben. This English gentleman lived in Cyprus and specialized in creating financial backrooms. At first, Alfa-Bank was among his clients, and then he was “picked up” by Yurov and Co., who instructed him to organize a network of offshore companies that were used as technical tools for lending to their projects and cash transactions credit funds"Trust". In other words, this was the dark side of the bank. And Ben Worlsey served as the prince of darkness. In November 2015, Mr. Waxley decided to come out. He reached an agreement with representatives of Otkritie Bank and moved to southern France, where, according to some information, he currently lives in a fortified house, which is guarded by professional British mercenaries from among former special forces.
From the materials of the lawsuit, which was considered in London, it became known that the current owners of Trust Bank agreed with Mr. Worsley in November 2015 to switch to their side, providing him not only with French housing and security, but also a monthly salary of $32,500 , as well as guarantees of protection in case of filing against him lawsuits third party. In response to such touching concern, Worsley agreed to give testimony in which he spoke in detail about the transactions that he carried out on behalf of and on behalf of the former shareholders of the Trust. And judging by the speech of the judge himself, he believes the testimony of Benedict Worsley. As a result, the judicial authorities (not to mention the Trust representatives) had all financial schemes Ilya Yurov and his company. Accordingly, it became almost impossible for them to protect their rights. What may explain the appearance of Yurov in Ukraine.
Friends in high places
Exposing the old owners of the Trust could be a Pyrrhic victory. According to representatives of the financial community, the real owners of assets that were listed as bank-owned(or those given to him as collateral) are not eager to return them to the new bank. And there is every reason to believe that the social and political rank of these owners allows them to retain these assets. Despite the decisions of the Moscow and London courts.
However, the new “Trust” is also not a simple organization. The bank is fully controlled financial corporation“Opening”, which is a “complex” financial education. It is based on the Nomos Bank, to which the Khanty-Mansiysk Bank, Petrocommerce Bank and Otkritie Bank itself were merged. After which (in 2014) “Nomos” was renamed “Otkritie”, completely confusing the public. But on the other hand, a private superbank has appeared in Russia - the largest private credit institution, the composition of whose owners reads like “Who is who” and includes Alekperov, Fedun, Mamut, Belyaev and other not the least captains of Russian business. “Opening”, despite its gigantic size, is a potential target for absorption.
In other words, regardless of the fate of the Trust lawsuit, the current war may turn out to be an easy warm-up for the real battle. In this situation, the prison in the city of Belaya Tserkov for Ilya Yurov may not be such a bad place.
In the early 1990s, he owned a recruiting firm and had no experience in finance. However, it was he who was entrusted by the ex-owners of Trust Bank (before the reorganization of 2014, one of the largest private banks in Russia) to head a network of offshore structures for servicing bad debts of a credit institution. Mr. Worsley even helped the ex-owners of Trust Ilya Yurov, Nikolai Fetisov and Sergei Belyaev move over to the UK, however, according to The Bell, with the beginning of the investigation against his employers, he began to testify against them.
The ideal intermediary
Like many other banks, during the 2008-2009 crisis, Trust tried to hide its bad debts, for this he developed a whole scheme. The bank provided loans to a Cypriot offshore company, which then, in a confusing scheme, channeled these funds through various structures and returned them to the Trust to service the debt. This allowed the bank to stay afloat for several more years - its reorganization was announced only in December 2014.
An important condition for the operation of the offshore network was the creation of a distance between it and the bank. To do this, the co-owners of Trust, Ilya Yurov, Nikolai Fetisov and Sergei Belyaev, needed an intermediary who would help manage offshore structures. This person should not have been Russian - European lawyers, sensing Russian money, increased the cost of their services for them.
Yurov decided that Worsley, with whom the head of Trust was familiar, was suitable for this role - the bank hired Worsley’s recruiting firm Central Search to search for managers. Yurov believed that Worsley had many connections with business circles and “had a pleasant spirit of the world aristocracy.” The fact that Worsley knew nothing about offshore companies and did not speak Russian did not bother the bankers. In the fall of 2009, Yurov invited Worsley to Moscow to personally discuss the “secret matter.” The Briton willingly agreed to the bankers' proposal, especially since his company in London was then experiencing falling revenues.
Offshore network
To Worsley's surprise, entering the world of offshore finance turned out to be quite easy. In November 2013, he started working for his new company, Teos Corporate Services. Worsley hired a dozen employees and arranged loans for 250 companies. The Russians have long used Cyprus as a "back door to European financial system"says WSJ, so the appearance of another offshore company did not arouse any suspicion.
The company's main task was to hide Trust's bad debts from clients, regulators and auditors. Every time the bank needed to service a large debt, the bankers instructed Worsley to create new companies to do this. The bank issued them a loan, the proceeds from this transaction were loaned to other companies from Cyprus or the British Virgin Islands, and then the money was returned to the Trust to service the original debt.
It cost about $4 million a year to maintain this entire scheme. Many companies offered their services to offshore companies. By tax issues Worsley was advised by Deloitte specialists, one of his companies was audited by KPMG, and the Cyprus branch of a Greek bank Piraeus Bank serviced accounts for dozens of companies from this network.
In order to disguise the beneficiaries of the entire structure, Worsley opened special trusts for bankers on the Isle of Man, through which they could manage their companies absolutely anonymously. It was not difficult to carry out all these operations - bankers, auditors and lawyers were familiar with such structures and did not ask unnecessary questions.
More than a middleman
Worsley not only created offshore fly-by-night shells for Trust shareholders. He also came up with various entertainment for them - he took them to Stonehenge, organized a boxing match for Yurov. In 2011, he helped Yurov obtain a visa and move his family to the UK, receiving $50 thousand for this.
From the very beginning of their interaction, Yurov and Worsley created the impression close friends– they spent a lot of time together, traveled, introduced each other to their parents and families. Worsley even converted to Orthodoxy (and Yurov stood next to him and translated the ceremony into Russian).
Despite all this, Worsley himself considered himself a “paid friend” of Yurov. It was hard for Worsley, who didn’t drink, to have fun with the Russians, writes WSJ. Uncomfortable situations arose, among other things, due to the language barrier.
Bank and relationship collapse
Despite the fact that his offshore structures no longer served the Trust, Worsley demanded more money from its shareholders to maintain it. He asked Yurov personally to transfer the funds when he flew with his son to Cyprus. This aroused suspicion among the banker and he asked to provide him with the statements. Looking through the accounts, Yurov discovered that about $300,000 had been transferred to Worsley’s account in the UAE, and another $45,000 for the reconstruction of the house Worsley had purchased in the south of France. The Briton denied stealing the money. Worsley made a similar demand to all shareholders. “I am now one of the leading offshore specialists in Europe,” he wrote to the bank’s former shareholders, while demanding compensation of $750 thousand for closing the network.
Yurov still needed Worsley, but in his legal proceedings. Russian investigators believed that the offshore structure was created to siphon money out of the bank. Worsley's documents would help Yurov prove that he used the structure to keep the bank afloat. But Worsley did not want to get involved in the banker’s legal conflict with the holding.
In 2015, Otkritie’s lawyers contacted Worsley and offered cooperation. The Briton was asked to help reveal the offshore structure of the ex-owners of Trust, transfer the bank’s assets to Otkritie and provide information about its former partners. The decision was not easy for Worsley. But when he found out that Yurov was going to sue Otkritie, the Briton decided to change sides. He agreed with Otkritie on payments of $32 thousand per month for a year, as well as on the transfer to him of up to 4% of the assets that could be obtained from the offshore structure. Worsley also promised that no charges would be brought against him.
Worsley's betrayal shocked Yurov. This year it became known that former owner Trust filed a lawsuit against him in the High Court of London, demanding to stop using confidential information about his assets, to pay damages caused by the disclosure of this information and the amount of the “bribe” (with which, according to him, Otkritie bribed Worsley).
Accusations and expulsion
"Opening" requires from Yurov, Fetisov and Belyaev to compensate $830 million, according to the plaintiffs, withdrawn from the bank. Russian authorities opened a criminal case against them, accusing them of embezzlement in special large size using official position. Yurov and his former partners say they are victims of a conspiracy. According to them, Otkritie exaggerated the losses in Trust in order to pay its own debts with the proceeds.
The former owners of Trust left Russia at the beginning of the investigation: Yurov first went to Cyprus, then to the UK, Fetisov also to the UK, and Belyaev to the USA. The Yurov family owns several properties in London, its own wine collection and a Turkish carpet worth $55 thousand.
Worsley moved to France. He was afraid of revenge from Yurov and even asked Otkritie to strengthen security in his house. He was also worried that the holding would not fulfill its promises and would stop paying him money. He now admits that the entire offshore system has collapsed due to banking crisis. “I found myself in the middle of a confrontation between two Russian players,” he wrote in his testimony. No charges were brought against Worsley himself.
After Otkritie itself underwent reorganization in the summer of 2017, Worsley wrote a letter to his former partners, inviting them to mediate reconciliation with Otkritie in exchange for their help.
As the agency reported "Ruspres", the Central Bank spent a record amount at that time on the rehabilitation of Trust in 2015 - 127 billion rubles. Experts explained the regulator’s generosity by the special relationship that arose between the owner of the sanatorium bank, Vadim Belyaev, and the head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina.
The bankers who convinced rich depositors to voluntarily give up their money, the rescuers of these depositors, who received 127 billion rubles from the budget, but never paid the money... The former owners of Trust Bank were arrested in absentia, the prosecutor's office is already interested in the reorganization of the bank. The financial recovery of the Trust could ultimately cost the state a record amount.
IRINA BEGIMBETOVA
Vyacheslav Malafeev, like other eminent investors, refuses to talk about his financial losses at Trust Bank. Most likely, we are talking about multimillion-dollar losses: his own business (real estate agency M-16) brings the famous goalkeeper as much as a contract with Zenit. Malafeev recently spoke about this, but he promised to publish exact earnings only after the contract with Zenit expires, on June 30. Perhaps after this it will be easier for him to make statements about the Trust. However, in any case, the prospects for returning the deposit seem vague.
Since August 2011, the bank began offering clients whose accounts started with 3 million rubles to transfer money from deposits to credit notes (type valuable papers). Trust sold notes to clients up to last day before reorganization in December 2014. In 2015, after the introduction of a financial recovery regime, the bank canceled its obligations under the notes. It is not known exactly how many clients and for what amount Trust sold credit notes, but according to estimates initiative group formed from among the victims, notes were bought by about 2 thousand people for about 20 billion rubles.
Since last year, security holders have been trying to get their money back through the courts. As Radik Lotfullin, head of the insolvency and bankruptcy practice at Nektorov, Saveliev & Partners (the firm represents the interests of some note holders in the courts), told Dengi, Trust hid from its clients the true risks of purchasing securities. In particular, the bank argued that the client would lose the money invested in the notes only in the event of the bank's license being revoked and bankruptcy. However, the bank wrote off four of the seven note issues on the basis that its capital adequacy standards had fallen below minimum value(2%) and a reorganization regime was introduced in the bank. Such conditions were included in the subordinated loan agreements between the bank and the Dutch companies C.R.R. B.V. and CL Repackaging, which acted as issuers of the securities. The bank wrote off the remaining issues, guided by new changes in the law on banks and banking activities. True, they came into force after the introduction of reorganization in the bank.
For the bank itself, the transfer of client investments from deposits to notes provided several advantages. "Trust" did not pay contributions to the Deposit Insurance Agency (securities, unlike deposits, do not need to be insured), in addition, the notes increased the bank's capital.
Most of the cases of credit note holders are considered by the Basmanny District Court of Moscow, which refuses claims from Trust clients. “It is clear to us that the court is biased,” says Radik Lotfullin. “How else can we explain the fact that the court ignored all our arguments and evidence, including the testimony of five bank employees, according to which depositors were not told about the risk of cancellation of credit notes.”
So far, note holders have been able to win cases only in the regions: decisions were made in favor of the plaintiffs, according to Alexander Ochkov, a representative of the initiative group, in 20 cases. “I had a simple strategy: transactions for the purchase of credit notes violated the law on the protection of consumer rights,” explains Alexander Sergeev, head of the department of civil law and process of the St. Petersburg branch of the Higher School of Economics. “Offer securities to investors who do not have status qualified investor, the bank had no right. The bank assigned status to clients, but clearly in violation of the procedure, through imaginary transactions: clients were given five contracts to sign for the purchase of securities and immediately five contracts for their sale. And all in one package with credit notes!"
First, the Kuibyshevsky District Court of St. Petersburg, and then the City Court, sided with Sergeev. At the end of April, the latter's decision came into force. True, the bank can appeal it in cassation within six months. Another of the cases, in which Honored Doctor of Karelia Vladimir Olshevsky is the plaintiff, reached Supreme Court Russia, which will consider the case on June 7.
Originally from MENATEP
Having begun to actively attract funds from the public, the bank tried to convince clients that Trust was a “tough nut to crack.”
Credit notes were just one way of masking holes in the Trust's capital. The history of this bank began in 1995 as a St. Petersburg subsidiary of the Moscow MENATEP bank, controlled by Mikhail Khodorkovsky. MENATEP did not survive the crisis of 1998: in May 1999 its license was revoked, and in September of the same year it was declared bankrupt: its debt to creditors amounted to about 40 billion rubles. After this, part of MENATEP's assets was transferred to MENATEP St. Petersburg and another Trust and Investment Bank (DIB) controlled by Khodorkovsky. According to banki.ru, MENATEP St. Petersburg received branch network and card business of the bank, and DIB - most of financial flows YUKOS.
In October 2003, searches were carried out at the MENATEP St. Petersburg office as part of the YUKOS criminal case. Almost simultaneously in "MENATEP St. Petersburg" and investment bank"Trust" (this is the name DIB received) has changed its board. Chairman of the Board of Menatep St. Petersburg Dmitry Lebedev left his post. Ilya Yurov, who previously served as Chairman of the Board of Trust, was elected Chairman of the Board of Directors of both banks. At that time, both banks were at the top of the ratings of the largest banks in the country: investment bank Trust was 17th in size equity(RUB 5.18 billion) and 15th in terms of value net assets(36.74 billion rubles), MENATEP St. Petersburg is 23rd in terms of equity capital (4.12 billion rubles) and 14th in terms of net assets (42.42 billion rubles).
In May 2004, the top management of the banks, led by Yurov, bought both assets from the MENATEP group, and the head office was transferred to Moscow. In 2005, MENATEP St. Petersburg was renamed into the national bank Trust: the banks operated under a common brand until 2008, when they merged into one national bank Trust.
The bank began to actively attract funds from the public, and emphasized its reliability with the help of images of brutal celebrities. In 2009, the face of the bank’s advertising campaign was the athlete, actor and showman Vladimir Turchinsky, and from 2010 to 2014 the bank was advertised by Bruce Willis.
Clearly, the problems of the Trust emerged in 2014. Although, as the Vedomosti newspaper wrote at the end of 2014, everything was clear to the bank’s auditors back in 2009. Vedomosti received a report prepared by auditors Ernst & Young (today EY) on the failed deal: in 2009, Trust shareholders negotiated a merger with All-Russian Bank regional development (a subsidiary bank of Rosneft). According to Vedomosti, which reviewed the report, in mid-2009 60% loan portfolio"Trust", amounting to 65 billion rubles. after deducting reserves, accounted for parties related to the bank. More than 60% of such loans were issued for projects of the bank’s largest beneficiaries - Chairman of the Board of Directors Ilya Yurov, members of the Board of Directors Nikolai Fetisov and Sergei Belyaev. The remaining share was spent on restructuring problem loans of shareholders and loans to friendly structures in order to maintain Central Bank standards.
In addition, auditors Ernst & Young discovered that Trust received subordinated loans, which allowed the bank to increase capital, through an illegal self-financing scheme. Credit notes issued under this scheme were precisely those offered to Trust clients.
In 2009, the Fitch Ratings agency also drew attention to the opacity of some of the bank's assets and its relations with its largest borrowers. In July 2010, it assigned "Trust" long-term rating"possible default", after which the bank refused to cooperate with the agency.
Throughout 2014, when Trust's problems became obvious, the bank several times approached the minimum core capital adequacy ratio of 5%. This first happened in March 2014, after which the bank raised RUB 3.14 billion in capital. through an additional issue of shares. But this “Trust” only lasted for six months: in September 2014, it again approached the critical point. In December, the bank planned to increase capital through an additional issue of 1.4 billion rubles, but the deal was cash-free - the shares were paid for by the building that the bank rents for the main office. The bank was finished off by the panic of depositors, who at the end of 2014 took money from banks. The outflow of deposits from Trust was small - about 3 billion rubles, but this was enough. On December 22, 2014, the Central Bank decided to reorganize the bank.
According to data as of December 1, 2014, deposits in Trust amounted to more than 144 billion rubles; in terms of the volume of funds of the population of the banks being rehabilitated, Trust took second place after the Bank of Moscow (147 billion rubles of funds of the population at the time of the decision to reorganize) .
The bank is interesting in all respects
Former Trust shareholders Ilya Yurov (left) and Nikolai Fetisov (right) were arrested in absentia, their current place of residence remains a secret
FC Otkritie Bank was chosen as the sanator of the Trust, which received 127 billion rubles for this program. from the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA). As the DIA reported, one of the key selection criteria was the “smallest amount of funds” allocated for financial recovery. DIA General Director Yuri Isaev stated in December 2014 that “the 127 billion rubles allocated by the Bank of Russia for the rehabilitation of Trust Bank will be enough.” However, a year later, Otkritie turned to the DIA for an additional amount to rehabilitate Trust, requesting another 47 billion rubles. Initially, the size of the hole in the bank was estimated at 68 billion rubles, but a few months later the volume of the shortage increased by 70% - to 114 billion rubles.
According to sources of the Kommersant newspaper, this growth was explained by the fact that the schemes for “inflating” capital on the part of the former owners stopped working, and half of the shortfall was made up of “scheme” assets.
As Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank Mikhail Sukhov stated at the stage of making the decision on reorganization, the Trust’s reporting was falsified. In April 2015, the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Moscow opened a criminal case on special major fraud(Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) in relation to former top managers of Trust. The former and... O. chairman of the board of the bank Oleg Dikusar and financial director Evgeny Romakov. According to investigators, the accused entered into fictitious agreements with legal entities registered in Cyprus, and from 2012 to 2014 transferred them 7.05 billion rubles. and $118.3 million. Then the money was transferred to the accounts of individuals and legal entities associated with the Trust.
The suspects, according to investigators, were not alone: former shareholders of Trust - Ilya Yurov, Nikolai Fetisov and Sergei Belyaev - were arrested in absentia by a Russian court. But by that time, the bank’s beneficiaries had not been in Russia for a long time: apparently, they left the country immediately after the decision on reorganization. It is not known exactly where they are now, presumably in the UK and the USA.
There are several precedents in the Trust case. Firstly, the bank is suing the former owners. Only the DIA has experience in prosecuting former owners in foreign courts, which achieved in a British court the seizure of the foreign assets of the founder of Mezhprombank, Sergei Pugachev. In the same court, Trust managed to achieve a similar decision, and now it will consider a claim for damages in the amount of $830 million: Trust believes that the former owners issued loans to their own companies offshore. Trust is suing a number of Cypriot companies associated with former owners in Moscow arbitration: according to Interfax, total amount claims amount to more than 37 billion rubles.
Another precedent is a repeated competition for reorganization. Otkritie has already applied for “additional” funding, but the Central Bank and the DIA now believe that additional funds should not be allocated without a competition. If Otkritie receives the requested 47 billion, the reorganization of Trust will become the largest in history (174 billion rubles). So far, the record holder is Mosoblbank, with more than 172 billion rubles allocated for its rehabilitation.
The results of the competition are expected to be announced on June 17. Of the major financial and credit organizations, Alfa Bank showed interest in it. According to the press service of Otkritie Holding, the group will also take part in the competition. This means that the Central Bank has no serious complaints about the financial recovery procedure carried out by Otkritie, which means it is unlikely to change the sanatorium. “If Otkritie remains a sanatorium of Trust and does not receive additional money for this, with financial recovery the group will certainly be able to cope, it has large resources, the only problem is whether this project will turn out to be profitable for Otkritie,” notes NAFI managing partner Pavel Samiev.
The reorganization of Trust and the allocation of additional funding for it, meanwhile, aroused claims from the Prosecutor General's Office. In April, she sent a submission to the Central Bank, noting that the regulator, in principle, has not developed criteria for selecting investors, and the possibilities, procedure and basis for additional financing are not limited in any way. “The main complaint about all these stories with additional allocation of money is the complete opacity of the entire reorganization process,” agrees Pavel Samiev.
In particular, the situation with payments on those same credit notes is unclear. According to Radik Lotfullin, who refers to the DIA's participation plan in the Trust bankruptcy procedure, the money for payments to note holders was included in the reorganization plan. According to the bank's reports, in 2015 it reserved 27.1 billion rubles for these purposes. However, in May, Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation Mikhail Sukhov said that the bank could receive partial compensation for losses on credit notes. In general, whether there was money and where it was is a big question.
The ex-co-owner of Trust Bank Ilya Yurov filed a lawsuit in the High Court of London against the former manager of his assets Benedict Worsley, Trust, Otkrytie Holding and his former board member Dmitry Popkov (Vedomosti got acquainted with the lawsuit, Yurov confirmed its authenticity ).
Starting around 2011, Worsley managed the companies of the Trust beneficiaries, and already in 2012, Yurov appointed him manager of his personal fortune. The lawsuit states that Worsley received compensation equal to 5% of the profits from the investments. In December 2014, the Central Bank decided to rehabilitate Trust, and Otkritie Holding took over the bank’s financial recovery. Criminal cases were opened against the former owners of Trust, Yurov and his partners Sergei Belyaev and Nikolai Fetisov, under the article “Misappropriation or embezzlement using official position on an especially large scale.”
After this, the new owners of Trust began to return the assets. In November 2015, Trust entered into a settlement agreement with Worsley (Vedomosti has reviewed it), according to which he was obliged to hand over all information about offshore companies in exchange for non-prosecution and remuneration. The agreement was signed on behalf of the bank by Popkov, Yurov’s lawsuit says.
Among the data Worsley was required to hand over were copies of documents relating to the assets of Yurov and his partners, information about how offshore companies were managed, as well as all communications he received from the former owners of the Trust. The settlement also included a "secret benefit" for Worsley, or bribery, Yurov alleges in the suit. From December 1, 2015, Worsley received $32,500 per month for his services, in addition, the Trust undertook to pay him from 1.5 to 4% of the value of the assets that could be returned to the Trust. The bank was also ready to compensate Worsley for travel expenses (business class flights and accommodation in 4-star hotels). And for revealing financial documents certain companies, Worsley could receive another $125,000.
In the lawsuit, Yurov demands that the High Court of London stop the use of confidential information about his assets. He also wants to recover damages that were caused to him due to the disclosure of this information, and the amount of the “bribe.”
According to English law, it is possible to demand from all participants (who paid, who received, and all “dishonest assistants”) the amount of the bribe itself and the amount of losses caused as a result of the bribe, says Yurov. “In my case, we are talking about a bribe amount from $500,000 to $2 million and damages in excess of $50 million,” he says. And he adds that Worsley was personally served with the claim in the UK at the end of February, and at the beginning of March, Trust and Otkritie Holding received the claim. The claim was also transferred to Popkov, who is now an adviser to the board of Trust.
The Trust representative declined to comment; Popkov said he did not know what they were talking about.
“As far as we know, Mr. Yurov’s claim was previously rejected by a New York court. Now he is trying to sue in London. Mr. Yurov can one by one file claims in all countries of the world - we have no doubt that the result will be the same, since his legal position is completely untenable,” said a representative of Otkritie Holding. In New York state court, Yurov filed a lawsuit against Otkritie Holding, as well as its shareholders Vadim Belyaev and Ruben Aganbegyan, where he claimed that they agreed to pay Yurov and partners $50 million for Otkritie to become a sanator of Trust Bank. , the agreement was oral. Last December, the court refused to consider the claim.
Vedomosti was unable to contact Worsley. In his testimony (the Trust filed a lawsuit in a London court in April 2016 against the former owners of the Trust and their wives for the recovery of $830 million), Worsley said that, although until December 2014 he was considered “a person acting on behalf of named after the bank,” many structures were intended personally for Yurov, Belyaev and Fetisov. “Since Yurov, Belyaev, Fetisov owned the Trust Bank, I considered these gentlemen and the bank as something single... Now I understand that at that time some initial losses were incurred by Trust due to the instability of the market situation Russian markets. The mismanagement of the bank by Yurov, Belyaev, Fetisov to the detriment of Trust’s creditors led to an increase in losses, and I am cooperating with the new management of Trust Bank in order to reduce at least part of them,” Worsley said then.
Trust Bank, which is currently undergoing a reorganization procedure, acquired 14.6657% of voting rights on September 1, 2017 PJSC shares"SK "Rosgosstrakh"". This follows from the information disclosed by the insurer on September 20. These data were confirmed by FC Otkritie Bank, which currently owns Trust.
Criminal cases have been opened against the former owners of Trust Bank in connection with the withdrawal of depositors' funds to the personal accounts of the bank's owners using various schemes, including Cyprus offshores. In February current year Trust Bank filed a lawsuit in the High Court of London to cancel the transfers of funds from the bank's former owners Ilya Yurov, Nikolai Fetisov and Sergei Belyaev to the accounts of their wives and the use of real estate purchased with this money in order to compensate for the damage caused to the bank.
According to the information provided by FC Otkritie Bank, as of September 8, it directly and indirectly owned 93.97% of the voting shares of Rosgosstrakh and 99.99% of the shares of Trust Bank.
Otkritie FC Bank and Otkritie Holding were selected as investors to carry out the reorganization of Trust Bank, which approached the Central Bank of the Russian Federation with a request for financial support at the end of 2014. At that time, Trust ranked 32nd in country in terms of assets among banks and had private deposits amounting to over 144 billion rubles. Soon, after a three-day high-speed inspection, the regulator reported that the Trust was “unreliable in its reporting.” Detected shortage Money significantly exceeded the initial estimate of 30 billion rubles, which the Central Bank planned to allocate for the rehabilitation of the credit institution. Based on the results of a comprehensive due diligence conducted by DIA, Otkritie and EY in the first quarter of 2015, the estimate of the size of the “hole” in the bank’s capital increased to 114 billion rubles, or about 45% of Trust’s assets as of December 2014. Funds were allocated for rehabilitation RUB 157 billion (of which 30 billion rubles were returned).
Over the past two years, the situation at Trust has not changed radically. As of September 1, 2017, the negative capital of the Trust exceeded RUB 99 billion. In the meantime, problems began already in the Otkritie FC bank, and on August 29, 2017, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation decided to sanitize this credit institution using a new mechanism - through entry into capital with the help of the Consolidation Fund banking sector. The perimeter of the recovery plan included Trust Bank, IC Rosgosstrakh, Rosgosstrakh Bank and over 25 other legal entities owned by FC Otkritie. (At the same time, Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation Dmitry Tulin expressed the opinion that the reason for the financial collapse of FC Otkritie was the purchase of Rosgosstrakh.)
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Since June 24, 2013, when Elvira Nabiullina became the head of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, about a third of all banks in the country have lost their licenses. Only in 2016 the right to engage banking activities lost 96 banks. But if, according to the reports provided to the regulator, at the time of revocation of the license the total assets of the “dispossessed” banks exceeded the liabilities, then in fact the sanatoriums discovered a huge hole in the amount of about 1.4 trillion rubles. as of the end of 2016 Amount paid DIA insurance The regulator does not disclose coverage for private deposits. According to calculations by the Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-Term Forecasting (TSMAKP), 65% of banks that lost their licenses had capital holes in the amount of 2.1% of GDP, and the banks that remained afloat may be hiding capital holes in their balance sheets in the amount of 5 .6% of GDP. One reorganization of FC Otkritie will require injections of up to 400 billion rubles, the Central Bank reported.
The fees of IC Rosgosstrakh for the six months of this year according to IFRS decreased by 15 billion rubles, to 52.4 billion rubles. (versus RUB 67.8 billion in similar period 2016), payments amounted to 50.8 billion rubles. (compared to RUB 55.7 billion a year earlier). The insurer's total loss under IFRS for the first half of the year increased to 23.5 billion rubles. (compared to 9.2 billion rubles in 2016), follows from the reporting of the insurance organization. However, against the backdrop of the situation in banking sector The insurers' problems seem almost insignificant.