The Arbitration Court of the Saratov Region refused to bring the beneficiaries of NVKbank to subsidiary liability. The decision was made the other day, on July 26. The motivational part of it has not yet been made public.
The initiative to bring the controlling persons of the bank to account in rubles belongs to the bankruptcy trustee, whose role in the bankruptcy of any bank goes to the Deposit Insurance Agency. The DIA calculated liability in the amount of 306 million rubles and demanded that it be divided jointly between the former chairman of the board of the bank, Vladimir Kravtsev, Vladislav Burov, the main beneficiary of the Buket Group of Companies, whose financial asset was the bank, Alla Pakina, Alexei Podlesny, Margarita Sakhnova and Alina Bobndar. The petition for a subsidy was received by the court on November 30, 2021.
Vladimir Kravtsev is currently the main defendant in the criminal case on embezzlement of bank funds, which was also initiated at the request of the DIA. The investigation proceeded rather slowly. There are 14 defendants in the case, and all of them are charged with major fraud, and Kravtsev is additionally charged with abuse of power.
The damage caused to the bank is estimated by the investigation at 2.9 billion rubles. In November 2022, the Frunzensky District Court of Saratov returned the case to the prosecutor’s office, in February of this year, this decision was also supported by the regional court. As a result, the case was returned to the Main Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The DIA was very dissatisfied with such decisions. But they did not appeal, officially declaring that, taking into account the violations that the investigators had committed, it was pointless to file a cassation.
Demanding subsidiary liability, the DIA demanded the seizure of the property of the bank’s controlling persons for 4.7 billion rubles. Among the property for which the DIA required interim measures were elite apartments in Saratov, Moscow and Sochi. But at the end of March 2023, the regional arbitration refused the applicant’s application.
As of mid-2022, the total amount of unsatisfied creditor claims against the bank amounted to 4.8 billion, of which 3.9 billion rubles fell on first-line creditors, including depositors whose funds in their accounts exceeded the amount of insurance compensation.
While seeking subsidies for 306 million, the DIA spent much more on legal services. At the beginning of 2023, it became known that the search and return of NVKbank’s troubled assets cost 406.6 million rubles, this amount was transferred to the Moscow South-Western Bar Association. What exactly they managed to find, even the shareholders of the bank could not figure out from the DIA report.
Meanwhile, the largest assets of NVKbank have not yet been sold. After the failed auction for the Schmidt mill in 2021, when they asked for 235.6 million rubles for it, no one tried to put the historical object near the new Saratov embankment up for sale again.
The complex of buildings of an old mill, which is a cultural monument, is inscribed in the plans of the region for the improvement of the embankment. The territory of the complex on the project submitted for public discussion is listed as a historical and cultural park.