On Monday Khoroshevsky District Court of Moscow sentenced founder of “Home Money” 65-year-old Evgeny Bernshtam to five years in prison in a penal colony of general regime, having found him guilty of 76 episodes of fraud on an especially large scale (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The presiding judge Sabina Rahimova began the announcement of the verdict with a delay of two hours. As it turned out, the defendant did not appear to listen to her. His defense claims that Bernshtam is undergoing planned treatment.
In this regard, Ragimova put the entrepreneur on the wanted list. Now his punishment will be calculated from the moment of detention.
Bernshtam was detained July 3, 2019 during the next interrogation at the Internal Affairs Directorate for the South-Eastern District of Moscow. Initially, the entrepreneur was placed in a pre-trial detention center, then the preventive measure was reduced to house arrest, and subsequently to a written undertaking not to leave the place. The trial on the merits in the Khoroshevsky court lasted almost 2.5 years.
“Kommersant”, 07/17/2023, “Home money” did not wait for the verdict”: On July 5, the Kuzminsky District Court of Moscow sent the accused to a pre-trial detention center, and this preventive measure was then repeatedly extended. Speaking in court, the accused assured that he was not involved in the criminal scheme, since he was only a pensioner who lived on a pension of 22 thousand rubles. and a subsidy of 2 thousand rubles. Also, Mr. Bernshtam insisted that his breathing stopped 138 times a night, and a slanderous campaign was unleashed against him using the site “Put the Ghoul in Jail”. However, these arguments did not impress the court. […]
The investigation also established that since 2012, Yevgeny Bernshtam’s company has functioned as a standard financial pyramid and was not going to return the money of its investors. At the same time, the owner of the IFC controlled the financial policy of the company and even himself negotiated with those who wanted to place money, after which contracts were concluded with them, according to which his company did not fulfill its obligations. After the collapse of the IFC, it owed creditors about 10 billion rubles. Most of the debt falls on individuals – almost 1.7 thousand people invested more than 6 billion rubles in the company, the rest was issued by banks. However, 76 victims appear in the case, and the amount of damage was about 150 million rubles. — Inset K.ru
According to the prosecution, in 2012, Bernshtam misled several investors and entered into agreements with them, under which the company was ultimately unable to pay. Investigators estimated the damage from fraud in the amount of more than 100 million rubles.
Bernshtam pleaded not guilty to embezzlement of depositors’ money either during the investigation or in the trial. At the same time, as follows from the announced verdict, the court partially satisfied civil claims from several victims, declared in the framework of a criminal case for a total of 10.3 million rubles.
In April 2018, Home Money, once the leader in the Russian microcredit market, defaulted on a five-year bond issue in the amount of 1.25 billion rubles. The company did not fulfill its obligations by 848 million rubles. In August 2018, the Central Bank excluded Home Money from the state register of microfinance organizations for repeated violations of legal requirements during the year. Bernshtam was included in the database of persons with an unsatisfactory business reputation. As Vedomosti wrote then, according to the latest reports of Home Money (for Q1 2018 according to Russian standards): over the past two years before revoking the license, the company increased the provision of loans to legal entities by 6 times: from 2.15 billion to 12.64 billion rubles, reducing during the same time, the portfolio of loans to the population from 5.58 billion to 0.43 billion rubles. In particular, the company issued a loan to the Cypriot Reluzo Trading Limited in the amount of 6.92 billion rubles. This company was listed in the financial statements as an affiliate, and its final beneficiaries were Evgeny Bernshtam and his wife Elena.
In January 2019, it turned out that the creditors of the Adela Financial Retail Group, which controls 77.3% of Home Money through two Cypriot companies, achieved its bankruptcy in the East Caribbean Supreme Court of the British Virgin Islands, and Bernshtam’s wife sued for division of property to the Gagarinsky District Court. At first instance, the court granted her claims in part. Later, Bernshtam disputed the reality of his agreement on the division of jointly acquired property. In July 2019, the Moscow Arbitration Court declared Bernshtam bankrupt. Its bankruptcy, along with Home Money, was initiated in 2018 by the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA): it is the bankruptcy trustee of banks to which Home Money did not return loans. During the debt restructuring procedure, it was revealed that Bernshtam had shares in three apartments in Moscow, Gazprom shares for 600,000 rubles. and a collection of figurines worth 201.6 million rubles.
Despite the bankruptcy procedure, “the persons who gave money as a loan decided to take the path of initiating criminal cases against the company’s executives,” lawyer Vadim Yalovitsky explained to Vedomosti. According to him, there were 2,500 employees in the company, and Bernshtam was only one of a dozen top managers. “But why was one Yevgeny Semenovich brought to criminal responsibility? [Бернштам] “I don’t understand,” says the defender. The lawyer intends to appeal the verdict within the time limit established by law, since he considers it unfair and not based on the materials that were obtained during the court hearings. Not a single person, according to Yalovitsky, from the interrogated witnesses and victims pointed a finger specifically at Bernshtam.
“Some of the evidence was not studied at all, but the most interesting thing is that Evgeny Semenovich [Бернштаму] charges were not filed due to coronavirus restrictions during the pandemic,” he said. The lawyer also added that in connection with the bankruptcy of his client, all material claims against him are declared in the framework of arbitration proceedings. Accordingly, the civil claims satisfied with the verdict had already been satisfied earlier.
IA “Interfax”, 01/13/2023, “The court extended the bankruptcy of the beneficiary of Home Money Bernshtam until July”: On January 12, the Moscow Arbitration Court extended the bankruptcy procedure for businessman Yevgeny Bernshtam, the beneficiary of the Home Money company, for another six months. […] On December 14, 2022, the Ninth Arbitration Court of Appeal upheld the ruling of the Moscow Arbitration Court, which on August 24 refused to Bernshtam to include 358.5 million rubles of debt to him in the register of creditors of this company. On January 31, 2019, the Moscow Arbitration Court recognized the statement of the Russian Trust Bank about the bankruptcy of Bernshtam as justified. His debt under the guarantee agreement amounted to 19.9 million rubles; on July 9, the court declared him bankrupt.
On February 26, 2019, the Moscow Arbitration Court found justified the application of Interkommerts Bank represented by the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA, bankruptcy trustee) about the bankruptcy of Home Money. The court then introduced a monitoring procedure for the company and included in its register of creditors a debt to the bank in the amount of 2.8 billion rubles. The court declared MFC “Home Money” bankrupt on January 22, 2020. The court then introduced bankruptcy proceedings against the debtor. — Inset K.ru
