ST. PETERSBURG, May 16 (RAPSI). The Thirteenth Commercial Court of Appeals has agreed to hear a Raiffeisenbank appeal of a lower court ruling that refused to invalidate a one-billion-ruble loan contract between JFC spin-off companies, according to the Supreme Commercial Court website.

Raiffeisenbank is appealing a ruling by a St. Petersburg commercial court. On May 9, that court ruled against the bank's suit to nullify the one-billion-ruble loan contract between Bonanza International and Cargo JFC. Both companies are currently under bankruptcy administration, with Raiffeisenbank listed as one of the creditors.

"The plaintiff claims that the defending parties in the dispute have been attempting to redistribute assets prior to the insolvency procedure," the court ruling says.

The court refused to nullify the loan contract in the absence of evidence that the defending parties had intended to do financial harm to Raiffeisen and had planned to conceal assets from the bankruptcy creditors.

In March 2012, the St. Petersburg court of appeals initiated administrative jurisdiction over JFC Group, Russia's largest fruit importer. Later in May, the court also began monitoring two other companies in the group, Cargo JFC and Bonanza International. By July 2012, the creditors' claims had reached 18 billion rubles.

Established in St. Petersburg in 1994, the JFC Group comprises fruit production, procurement, storage, distribution, and sales companies. It has 3,000 hectares of banana plantations in Ecuador and Costa Rica where it also has offices in addition to those in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and other Russian cities, plus Cyprus. It has a staff of approximately 3,600. JFC is involved with fruit sales in Europe, the Middle East, and the CIS.