MOSCOW, April 13 - RAPSI. A court of appeals will hear on May 16 Premier Estate's appeal against the $450 million collection for the Bank of Moscow from Premier Estate and TD Ramenskaya.
TD Ramenskaya was part of Inteco then owned by Yelena Baturina, Russia's richest woman and wife of Moscow ex-Mayor Yuri Luzhkov.
The Bank of Moscow granted a loan to Cyprus-based Premier Estate in 2009. TD Ramenskaya acted as the guarantor. The loan was set to be repaid in October 2015.
However, the bank filed a lawsuit after Premier Estate defaulted on the debt servicing in January 2011.
The court is in the middle of considering two more bank's lawsuits against the same defendants - for $4 million and $2.3 million. Their hearing has been scheduled for May 18.
A criminal case was opened against former Bank of Moscow President Andrey Borodin and his deputy Dmitry Akulinin in late 2010. Borodin and Akulinin were charged with defrauding the Moscow budget of $430 million. The bank provided these funds to Premier Estate which applied the money to purchase a 58 hectare land plot from Baturina's TD Ramenskaya.
Before providing the loan, the bank additionally issued $500 million worth of shares which were fully purchased by the Moscow government as one of the bank's major shareholders.