MOSCOW, November 11 (RAPSI) – Russia’s Deposit Insurance Agency has announced on Monday that it is ready to litigate in Russia with billionaire Sergei Pugachev.

Pugachev is believed to be the main beneficiary of the midsized lender International Industrial Bank (Mezhprombank), which defaulted on its debts and lost its banking license after receiving a 40-billion-ruble ($1.2 billion) bailout from Russia’s Central Bank.

A court in Russia declared Mezhprombank bankrupt in November 2010 and opened a criminal case in January 2011. The actions of unidentified bank managers were defined at the time as “illegal operations in the process of bankruptcy filing and deliberate bankruptcy.”

The bank’s creditors include the Central Bank of Russia, state-owned bank VTB and steelmaker Severstal.

Several people were later named in connection with the case, but Pugachev was not among them.

He left Russia where he was charged with embezzlement for the UK in 2011.

Russian authorities wanted to question Pugachev, but he refused to cooperate and did not respond to the summons. A court in Moscow issued a warrant for his arrest in absentia, and he was later put on the international wanted list.

The Deposit Insurance Agency filed a claim against Pugachev in a UK court. The agency alleged that Pugachev extracted money from Mezhprombank for his personal benefit after it became insolvent. The court issued last July an order freezing assets worth more than $2bn belonging to Sergei Pugachev, according to the Financial Times.