MOSCOW, June 2 (RAPSI) – The Moscow Commercial Court has set the hearings on Rosneft’s $184.8 million debt recovery claim against Cyprus-based Swisspro Capital Limited affiliated with Ukrainian tycoon Sergey Kurchenko on July 4, the case materials read.

The Russian oil company moved to collect the debt related to the crude oil delivery contract of March 27, 2014. 

The Cypriot company acted as a borrower of about $400 million, lent in 2013 by Russian VTB bank for purchase of the Odessa oil refinery in Ukraine from Russian oil company Lukoil by Kurchenko’s VETEK Group of Companies.

In May 2014, the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) said that according to its estimates the damage caused by Kurchenko’s actions made 4 billion Ukrainian hryvnas (about $152 million at the present exchange rate). 

Earlier, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry has claimed to detect a scheme of illegal import and sale of oil products by VETEK, where Kurchenko is the chair of the Supervisory Board. According to investigators, oil products were being sold without paying taxes via fictitious companies. At that time, the Interior Ministry estimated the damage caused in 2013 alone at 26 billion hryvnas (about $2 billion).

According to a SSU statement, in order to protect the state property-related interests there were seized certain VETEK assets in Odessa and Kurchenko was put on the international wanted list.