MOSCOW, November 7 (RAPSI) – The Commercial Court of St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region had set the date for hearing a claim by Baltiysky Torgovy Dom seeking to declare bankrupt a co-owner and ex-head of the Baltiysky Bank Oleg Shigayev staying charged with a 3 billion rubles ($45 million) fraud, on January 24, RAPSI learnt in the court on Monday.

The court is to examine yet another claim seeking Shigayev’s bankruptcy lodged by the Center of Leasing Technologies.

This April, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia forwarded to Switzerland a request for extradition of Oleg Shigayev.

According to investigators, Shigayev had demanded that members of the bank’s credit committee approved loans to firms under his control. After that in June through August 2014 more than 3.37 billion rubles ($51 million) were transferred to the accounts of the said commercial entities; “the accused had disposed of these funds at his sole discretion, in particular, legalizing these funds.”

Shigayev has been charged in absentia with fraud and money laundering. The Baltiysky Bank ex-head moved to Switzerland in autumn 2014 prior to the rehabilitation of the bank.

Baltiyskiy Bank is one of Russia’s oldest commercial banks. It was established in 1989 and has branches in 30 cities over the country. According to “RIA Rating” as on July 1, 2014, Baltiysky was 69th among Russian banks in terms of total assets. The amount of the bank’s assets made 85.7 billion rubles ($1.2 billion) at that time, whereas the amount of household deposits was at 58 billion rubles ($878 million) as in early June.

Last August, the Bank of Russia announced the launch of financial restructuring of Baltiysky Bank, included in the top 100 of largest Russia’s banks. The Deposit Insurance Agency was set as a turnaround manager; the Central Bank had provided a credit line in amount up to 10 billion rubles ($151 million) so the agency could manage the bank’s liquidity. Since August 20, the agency has acted as an interim administrator of the bank.

According to reports, the decision to rehabilitate the bank had been taken in the situation, where problems relating to the quality of assets were apparent. However, these problems did not affect liquidity, thus the bank could carry out its activities seamlessly.

In October 2014, Alfa Bank, Russia’s largest private bank in terms of total assets, equity, customer accounts and loan portfolio, bought an 88 percent stake in Baltiyskiy Bank.