MOSCOW, May 21 (RAPSI) – The Seventeenth Commercial Court of Appeals has issued a ruling that the former head of EEFC-Ural Bank, Alexander Gitelson, and two other former top managers of the bank must pay 300.2 million rubles ($6 million) in damages in a lawsuit filed by the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA).

The court of appeals has overturned the March 1 decision of the Commercial Court of Appeals of the Sverdlovsk Region, which dismissed a petition filed by the Deposit Insurance Agency, the current bankruptcy receiver of EEFC-Ural Bank, to collect 350.2 million rubles (over $7 million) from the defendants.

The DIA argued that the defendants did damage to the bank in the said amount by approving unrecoverable loans.

Earlier, a commercial court in Yekaterinburg upheld a lower court ruling that declined to seize the assets totalling 350.2 million rubles ($7.1 million) belonging to former owner of the VEFK bank Alexander Gitelson and his two assistants.

The Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) asked the court to seize the property of Gitelson, former chair of the bank’s board Olga Chechushkova, and deputy chair Anatoly Kolmakov.

The DIA argued that the injunction would not infringe on the defendant’s rights, that it would be a reasonable move and that it would ensure the implementation of the court’s decision to protect the plaintiff’s interests. Nevertheless, the court rejected the DIA petition.

Gitelson was arrested in Austria in April 2013 and extradited to Russia in December.

In March, Gitelson was convicted and sentenced for embezzling over 2 billion rubles (about $39 million) in public funds from Inkasbank. A court in St. Petersburg also fined the banker 500,000 rubles (about $10,200).

In April 2011, Moscow’s Meshchansky District Court sentenced Gitelson in absentia to five years in prison and a 1 million ruble ($20,300) fine for embezzling 495 million rubles ($10 million) from his acquaintance, MP Adnan Muzykayev.