MOSCOW, April 22 (RAPSI) — The Moscow Commercial Court has ordered to undertake an examination of signatures of former Vneshprombank chairman of the board of directors Elena Lirina in a case against 17 ex-bank managers, from whom Russia’s Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) seeks recovery of about 217 billion rubles ($2.8 billion), the court's ruling reads. 

The petition for a handwriting examination was made by Lirina. The court instructed the Russian Federal Center for Forensic Science under the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation to carry it out.

The application for the recovery of the said sums from ex-president of the bank Larisa Markus and 16 other former executives of the credit institution was submitted to the court by the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA), which is the bankruptcy administrator of Vneshprombank. 

In the framework of the litigation, on January 30, 2020, at the request of the DIA, the court took interim measures envisaging that immovable property of 8 defendants was to be seized and they were prohibited to register any actions resulting in the alienation and encumberance thereof.

The DIA found that from March 1, 2014 to March 14, 2016, the bank controlling persons granted loans to technical legal entities not engaged in economic activities and not having own property and incomes for servicing debts.  

Moreover, the deposit insurer revealed illegal funds debiting from the bank clients’ accounts. The bank’s execs also failed to take steps to prevent bankruptcy that caused damage to the financial organization.

According to the applicant, these circumstances should be considered as a reason for bringing the defendants to subsidiary liability. 

In November 2018, the Moscow Commercial Court extended asset realization procedure against ex-Vneshprombank president Larisa Markus, who was declared bankrupt in May 2017 on the application of VTB24 bank. This May, the court prolonged bankruptcy proceedings against her husband Lazar Markus.

In March 2016, the Moscow Commercial Court declared Vneshprombank bankrupt. Vneshprombank was one of the top 40 by assets before it lost license in January of the same year.

Criminal cases against former top managers of Vneshprombank 

In February 2020, the Moscow Khamovnichesky District Court for the second time dismissed the claim for compensation of harm against Larisa Markus and vice-president of the credit institution Yekaterina Glushakova, who were sentenced to prison terms for embezzling 113.5 billion rubles ($1.5 billion at the current exchange rate).

Earlier, the Moscow court found Markus and Glushakova guilty of serious fraud and embezzlement and sentenced them to 9 years and 4 months in a general regime colony. The Moscow City Court on appeal reduced Markus's sentence to 8 years and 6 months in prison, leaving the sentence against Glushakova unchanged. 

According to the sentence, the decision on the claim of the injured party (Vneshprombank) represented by the DIA against the convicts in the amount of 113 billion 526 million rubles ($1.5 billion) is to be made following the results of civil proceedings.

The court and investigative authorities established that Markus, together with her brother and the actual head of the bank, Georgy Bedzhamov, who once co-owned the bank, created an organized crime group to siphon money from the bank. The group including former vice-president of the bank Yekaterina Glushakova granted loans to sub-companies and did not refund money to Vneshprombank.  

In the period from May 2009 to December 2015, the accomplices, by issuing deliberately bad loans using forged documents, writing off funds from the accounts of a number of depositors without their knowledge, and also by issuing loans to 286 companies registered on behalf of figureheads, stole about 114 billion rubles (about $1.5 billion).

In April 2020, the Moscow Khamovnichesky District Court sentenced Ekaterina Glushakova to 6 years in a general regime colony for embezzling 33.6 billion rubles ($440 million), the press service of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation reported. The court also satisfied the civil claim of the victim represented by the DIA in the amount of more than 33.6 billion rubles ($440 million).