ST.-PETERSBURG, May 5 - RAPSI. The St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region Commercial Court will hear claims filed by the Joint Fruit Company's creditors on June 29. The creditors want the court to include over $270 million in claims in the JFC schedule of debts.

The court assigned parent company JFC to administrative monitoring this March. In May the court will also consider bankruptcy applications from two other JFC subsidiaries: Bonanza International and Cargo JFC. They received syndicated financing amounting to $88 million and 1.5 billion rubles ($51 million) in the spring of 2011.

According to JFC reports last February, administrative monitoring was "based on the need to protect its creditors' interests and continue its operations." The company's financial difficulties were caused in part by international market instability which could be attributed to "Arab spring" developments that resulted in the bankruptcy of many produce distributors.

The following banks want these respective claims to be included in the JFC debt schedule: ОТР Bank Plc, 297.51 million rubles ($10 million); Rosbank, 240.1 million rubles ($8 million); Bank of Moscow, 312.98 million rubles ($10.6 million); and St. Petersburg Bank, 1.28 billion rubles ($43.3 million).

JFC General Director, Vladimir Kekhman, plans to resolve the company's financial situation over the next three months and to offer a new business plan.

The JFC Group was founded in St. Petersburg in 1994. It consists of fruit production, procurement, storage, distribution and sales companies. It operates roughly 3,000 hectares of banana plantations in Ecuador and Costa Rica. According to JFC it is Russia's largest fruit comany.

JFC runs offices in St. Petersburg, Moscow and other Russian cities, as well as in Cyprus, Ecuador and Costa Rica. It has 3,600 personnel.

JFC is engaged in fruit sales in Europe, the Middle East and the CIS.