MOSCOW, May 12 (RAPSI) - The Moscow Commercial Court has rejected  a lawsuit filed by Cyprus-registered Bockmer Ventures Limited, which represents the interests of Sergei Polonsky’s co-investors, demanding $48,96 million from the Federation Tower (formerly Mirax City), RAPSI reported from the courtroom Monday.

In its court claim, Bockmer Ventures requests the investment contract to be terminated and to be repaid $17.5 mln in debts, plus $6.7 mln in interest for using a third party’s funds, and $24.8 mln in damages.

The Moscow Government, Department of State Property and Federal Service for Financial Monitoring have been brought into the proceedings as third parties. Earlier, the court substituted a defendant in the case because the company has changed the name from  Potok & 0458 to the Federation Tower.

Initially, Polonsky’s co-investors requested that Potok & 0458 repay over $47 million in debts, or provide premises to the same value in the Federation Tower of the Moscow City business center. The plaintiff explained to the court that the lawsuit was filed because the construction of the Federation Tower is still incomplete and it is not clear when it will be complete or when the plaintiff will be granted the use of the premises.

Mirax Group (later renamed Potok8) was founded in 1994. In November 2013, Polonsky’s former lawyer, Alexander Dobrovinsky, announced that Polonsky had sold Potok to Roman Trotsenko’s businesses without any pressure from the purchaser. However, the press service of the businessman’s current lawyer, Alexander Karabanov, later reported that Potok was sold for $100 million under pressure. The price is almost four times lower than the business’s actual value. It was also claimed that Polonsky had not yet received the money. Polonsky himself has said that he is not clear who currently owns Potok. Roman Trotsenko’s AEON corporation announced last December that the Federation Tower was planned for completion in December 2015.

Polonsky was charged in absentia last July as part of a criminal case involving the embezzlement of over 5.7 billion rubles (over $162 million) from the participants in an up-market cooperative residential construction project in central Moscow. On March 20, Polonsky was officially charged with embezzling over 150 million rubles ($4.3 million) from participants in another residential development project.