In a publication dated May 10, Business Vector spoke about the decision of the Saratov regional arbitration court on the claim of the Moscow company Forward Capital, issued in 2019. It quoted verbatim the explanatory note of the Deposit Insurance Agency to the bank’s financial statements for 2015: “As of December 2014, the Bank had a securities portfolio in the amount of 2 billion rubles, the main reason for the Bank’s financial difficulties was the theft in 2014 of the Bank’s management of a professional participant in the securities market LLC IC Task Quadro Securities, whose license has now been revoked. The fulfillment by the Bank of the requirements of the Saratov Branch of the Volgo-Vyatka GU of the Bank of Russia on the additional formation of reserves for possible losses in October-November 2015 led to a decrease in the amount of own funds (capital) to a negative value.
But the Moscow arbitration, where the black broker Task Quadro Securities went bankrupt, really refused to include the claims of Econombank in the amount of more than 2 billion rubles! Moreover, this refusal withstood the appeal, cassation, and the complaint to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation did not bring success to the Saratov bank.
All instances of the capital’s arbitration came to the conclusion that the bank’s ownership of the securities was not proven, nor was their crediting to the accounts of IC Task Quadro Securities.
The Moscow arbitration in the framework of case No. A40-145317 / 15-175-478B issued a refusal to Econombank in September 2016. The court established that in 2013 the bank and IC Task Quadro Securities concluded a depo account agreement, in which the investment company, under the terms of the agreement, kept the bank’s securities, and also performed operations with securities through a specially opened brokerage account.
The portfolio of stocks and bonds, according to the depo account statement dated December 1, 2014, was really good. It included 24 types of documentary securities: these are bonds of the Russian Ministry of Finance and the government of Moscow, as well as blue chips – shares of Gazprom, Alrosa, Rosbank, Russian Railways, with a total nominal value of about 2 billion rubles. Previously, this portfolio was on a depo account with Promsvyazbank, but was transferred by the former depository to a new one by order of the owner.
However, according to Econombank, on December 16, 2014, it instructed the new depository to return the securities back to the depo account in Promsvyazbank, but Task Quadro Securities did not fulfill this order, for this reason the bank incurred losses in the amount of the nominal value of the deposited securities.
But the court recalled that according to the Federal Law “On the Securities Market”, the rights of owners to securities of a documentary form of issue, stored in depositories, are certified not only by records on depo accounts, but also by certificates. And a mere statement of the depo account is not sufficient proof of the crediting and subsequent availability of securities.
The court also saw no evidence confirming the transfer of rights to the disputed securities by debiting them from a depo account with Promsvyazbank to a depo account with Task Quadro Securities. The accounting reports of Promsvyazbank were presented in the case materials, but the court did not consider them to be confirmation of transactions with securities on the Econom depo account.
But the claimant did not provide relevant evidence in the form of an extract from the depo account of Econom in Promsvyazbank and (or) a report on operations on the depo account with Promsvyazbank. Also, an extract from the Task Quadro Securities depo account in a higher depository, where the shares and their movement would be visible, was not submitted to the court.
Also, the first instance came to the conclusion that the allegation that Task Quadro Securities did not fulfill the instruction to write off securities from its depo account was not proven either. The fact is that the submitted copies of instructions to write off securities contain a note of non-execution of the instruction, the date and signature of a bank employee. But the employee who signed the copy had already been fired at that time. The interim manager of the broker obtained this information from the decision of the Presnensky District Court of Moscow, where it was indicated that the employee was fired at the end of 2014.
Therefore, the Moscow arbitration stated that the bank did not prove either the fact of causing losses to it, or the fact that it had ownership of the disputed securities, or the loss of the right, or the violation by the broker of obligations that caused such a loss.
In an appeal, Ekonombank would have had a chance if in the first instance it filed motions to call new witnesses, conduct an examination, attach to the case or demand written and material evidence, and the first instance would refuse to claim or examine this evidence. But the bank did not apply to the Moscow Arbitration Court with such petitions; moreover, it objected to the petition of the arbitration manager to demand documents. And therefore, as indicated in definition 9 of the AAC, the decision of the first instance remained in force.
Thus, it is not completely clear where the Econom’s securities portfolio, which in 2015 was worth about 2 billion rubles, is. Whether he really was and whether the broker arbitrarily ordered it – it seems that only the Volzhsky District Court, which will consider a criminal case against the bank’s management, can give an answer to this question.
Fighting beneficiary, empty bills and “elite” in Magnitny Proyezd
Another bright page in the secret life of the most venerable credit institution is associated with Bely Sokol LLC. This company is known for several reasons: because of its connections with the people of Penza, who destroyed the Saratov aircraft plant, and because of their odious development projects on the slope of Sokolovaya Gora, blocking the panoramic view of Saratov.
But the White Falcon had another project that was almost completed – a 9-storey building at 2 Magnitny proezd, in the quiet center of Saratov. This construction site, in addition to legal entities, had only two equity holders-physicists, who, it would seem, were so easy to leave with a nose. But to the misfortune of the authors of the scheme, one of the co-investors turned out to be a combat pilot, the hero of the Syrian military campaign. Our publication defended him.
In 2010, shortly before the commissioning of the facility, the developer suddenly became bankrupt, and sold the almost completed “elite” to the White Falcon as a work in progress, along with the right to lease six hectares of land in the center of Saratov. In 2014, the general director of the White Falcon, Anton Kondratyev, for some reason issued bills of exchange of his company for 95 million 203 thousand rubles, and also signed loan agreements with Econom Finance LLC and Econom Factoring LLC for large amounts. Moreover, Kondratyev himself was the director of the second company, and he borrowed not real money, but promissory notes. Through the work of Kondratiev, the creditor, which was burdened with the unfinished building on 2nd Magnitny Proezd, grew to 215 million rubles, and in 2017 the bankruptcy of the White Falcon began.
Why did Kondratiev do this? Bills and loans are a popular scheme for organizing financial insolvency, when a legal entity needs to be urgently drowned, and at the same time nullified through bankruptcy and all obligations hanging on it.
Both “Ekonom” without any problems got into the “falcon” register of creditors. How did it happen? After all, those bills that both lenders used in the struggle for elite unfinished construction, as established by the regional arbitration, were not even on the balance sheet of organizations, were not presented for payment, and the issuers themselves did not have the financial ability to issue debt securities worth hundreds of millions of rubles. .
That is, these are classic dummies, but – competently “reinforced”, and in all cases – in 2016 through the Arbitration Court as part of one judge – a certain Tarasova N.D. The second stage was an appeal to the Engels District Court, which issued writ of execution for the enforcement of the decisions of the arbitration court. With these sheets, both “Economy” entered the register of the “White Falcon”, and the face value of the requirements of each owner of the bills amounted to tens of millions of rubles.
The debts of the “White Falcon” itself were “covered” according to the same scheme. As a result, the company owed both Economists more than 170 million rubles, and in general, a whole parade of contenders connected with Econombank marched in front of the shocked “physicists” in the second bankruptcy: this is Econombank JSC itself with a claim amount of 95.2 million rubles, LLC Economy Finance (77.3 million rubles), Econom Factoring LLC (107 million rubles), and Econom Insurance LLC (more than 35 million rubles), and Tender S LLC (almost 63 million rubles).
It was not easy to cope with a crowd of eminent creditors, especially since among those who defended the interests of bankers, even the future governor Roman Busargin, at that time the deputy head of the regional government, flashed by. And yet, the “physicists” managed to be recognized as deceived equity holders and the bankruptcy procedure for the developer was initiated. At the moment, a housing cooperative has already been created, and the object itself is close to completion and delivery.
According to informed people, from the very beginning it was Ekonombank that was the main investor in the construction, and why he needed to contact the White Falcon and start a muddy bill game, one can only guess. The simplest version is to take the object out of the bank’s possession. The proof can be the complex trajectory along which the rights of claim against Bely Sokol LLC roamed.
They, as if by relay race, were passed to each other by 9 characters. The owner of No. 4 was Alexander Viktorovich Suslov (the full namesake of the main shareholder of the bank), he sold them in 2015 to the owner of No. 5 – Econom Finance, who resold them in 2016 for 86 million rubles to another company, then the rights of claim wandered further, until in 2018 “Tender C” (owner No. 9) voluntarily returned them to the same “Econom Finance”.
The activists of this promissory note saga – Econom Finance LLC and Econom Factoring LLC, as evidenced by the bankruptcy cases of these companies, constantly worked with the bank, servicing leasing and factoring transactions, issuing loans and lending in Econom for hundreds of millions of rubles.
Today, the ex-director of the “White Sokol” and “Economy Factoring” Anton Yuryevich Kondratiev is in the dock. His neighbors are the ex-founder of Econom Factoring Denis Petrovich Ulyanov, the ex-founder of Econom Finance Oleg Borisovich Kononov, and the co-owner of both companies Alexander Aleksandrovich Mikhailov.
Help “BV”. Econom-Factoring LLC was liquidated in 2019 after bankruptcy proceedings, bankruptcy proceedings at Econom-Finance LLC ended in 2021 with the liquidation of the company. The criminal case of the banking OPS has 321 volumes of basic materials plus 2,000 volumes of evidence. The investigation dragged on for 6.5 years, according to the Main Directorate of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the region, 14 defendants, headed by the former chairman of the board of the bank, Matvey Suslov, issued knowingly bad loans to affiliated companies. More than 1 billion rubles were withdrawn from the bank. The DIA introduced the bank’s financial recovery procedure in December 2015. The property of the accused was seized in the amount of more than 2 billion rubles and 41 million US dollars. Suslov and his colleagues are charged with money laundering (Article 174 of the Criminal Code), deliberate bankruptcy of a credit institution (Article 196 of the Criminal Code), organizing a criminal community (Article 210 of the Criminal Code), and fraud (Article 159 of the Criminal Code).