MOSCOW, February 5 (RAPSI) – The Moscow City Court on Wednesday overturned a court order extending detention of three defendants in the Baring Vostok case, the court’s press service told RAPSI.

An investigator’s motion to extend detention of the investment fund’s partner Vagan Abgaryan, Chief Investment Officer Ivan Zyuzin and CEO of the First Collector Bureau Maxim Vladimirov until February 13 will be repeatedly considered by the Basmanny District Court of Moscow.

According to the investigation, Baring Vostok founder, U.S. citizen Michael Calvey, who stands charged with embezzlement, knowing about a 2.5-billion-ruble debt of the First Collector Bureau, a firm under his control, has organized the sale of its shares to Vostochny bank that has led to embezzlement.

The Investigative Committee claims that he committed a crime that could not be classified as business crime because he used a chain of sham companies settling the deal. Moreover, investigators say they have a PricewaterhouseCoopers’ audit report on the done deal estimating the sold shares at 600,000 rubles, which indicates an instance of fraud.

Calvey denies allegations insisting that the deal was fair as both companies agreed its terms and stood for it, including a person reporting an alleged crime to law enforcement bodies. He noted that a report has been filed with police by a member of Vostochny bank board of directors Sherzod Yusupov. According to Calvey, the real reason of his prosecution is a wide corporate dispute related to the control of the bank by two groups of shareholders: Baring Vostok and stockholders coming from Uniastrum bank, which was reorganized and joined to Vostochny in early 2017.

Baring Vostok company founded by Calvey in 1994 focuses on private equity investments in the CIS and Russia. The company has invested in shares of Yandex, Vkusvill, Tinkoff Bank and other major projects.