MOSCOW, 12 Apr. The Moscow Arbitration Court, at the suit of Trust Bank, has recovered jointly and severally about 113.1 billion rubles in damages from three former controlling persons of AvtoVAZbank, including former beneficiaries of Promsvyazbank, brothers Alexei and Dmitry Ananiev, a source familiar with the proceedings said.
Filed in April 2021, the Trust’s claim for the joint and several recovery of losses caused by the reorganization of AVB Bank is addressed to the former controlling persons of this credit institution, the first reorganization of which was carried out by Promsvyazbank. The defendants in the lawsuit, in addition to the Ananievs, include Nikolai Taran, ex-co-owner of AVB Bank, and Oleg Vdovin, president of AVB Bank from February 2016 to August 2018. The court on Wednesday, as the source said, rejected the claims against Vdovin.
Avtovazbank was founded in 1988. AvtoVAZ became one of its founders. In July 2015, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation transferred AVB Bank to Promsvyazbank Ananyevs for reorganization. But in December 2017, PSB itself needed reorganization, Avtovazbank then went to Trust.
Since April 2018, the Bank of Russia, as a financial assistance to AVB Bank, has provided funds in the form of deposits in the amount of 352.5 billion rubles and funds for additional capitalization in the amount of about 350 million rubles.
The amount of this claim is calculated according to the formula from the bankruptcy law: the losses are equal to the income that the Central Bank would receive by placing the amount spent on reorganizing the bank at a key rate instead of zero, under which it allocates funds through the Banking Sector Consolidation Fund. Since August 2022, this case, at the request of the Central Bank, participating in it in the status of a third party, was heard behind closed doors.
On the basis of Trust Bank, after Rost Bank joined it in the summer of 2018, a bank of non-core assets (BNA) was created, which consolidated the «bad» and non-core assets of a number of banks being rehabilitated for their further sale. «Trust» in March 2019 reported that it had completed the acquisition of the assets of «AVB Bank» for 340 billion rubles, thereby completing the consolidation of assets in the area of interests of the BNA. Taking into account the previously transferred assets of the Otkritie group, including the assets of Binbank, Trust and Rost Bank, their total value at that time reached 2 trillion rubles.