On 12 December 2017, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) appealed to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) to probe into the legality of actions of the judges of the Kyiv Administrative Court of Appeal that heard the case based on a lawsuit filed by the Surkis family. The lawsuit sought to appeal against declaration of the Surkis family as related parties of CB PrivatBank PJSC and recover funds from the bank.

It is reported that the judges who considered the case had failed to take into account evidence provided by the NBU and CB PrivatBank PJSC, and upheld the decision of the court of the first instance to recover funds from the bank in favor of Mr Rakhmil Surkis, which were not converted into shares of additional issue at the time of the bank’s nationalization, being still accounted on his deposit accounts. Further, the court has also failed to look into the issue of terminating the relevant deposit agreements. Therefore, the above-mentioned court decision has unreasonably doubled the amount of the bank’s liabilities to Mr Surkis.

The NBU is concerned that these measures will inflict damage to the bank, which is owned 100% by the state, on a particularly large scale.

In its appeal, the NBU asked to enter into the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations information based on the facts laid out in the notice sent to the NABU, and to provide documents certifying the registration of this notice in the Unified Register.

For reference

On 17 May 2017, the Kyiv Circuit Administrative Court sustained a claim filed by Surkis’ family on challenging the related party status and seizing funds from CB PrivatBank PJSC for the amounts of UAH 1.05 billion, USD 266,200 and EUR 7,800.

On 6 November 2017, the Kyiv Administrative Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal of the ruling by the court of the first instance.

The NBU filed an appeal to the Higher Administrative Court of Ukraine.

The hearing date has not been scheduled yet.