Paris court upholds decision to collect Ukrainian bank’s Crimea-related losses from Russia
The Paris Court of Appeal has dismissed Russia’s attempts to suspend the execution of the International Court of Arbitration’s decision to award $1.3 billion in compensation to Ukraine’s Oschadbank for the expropriation of the bank’s assets in Crimea, reports the press service of the bank.
Russia claims that the execution of the arbitration ruling in countries that protect government immunity to a lesser degree than France could be harmful to it. The judge dismissed Russia’s motion and emphasized that the request to implement the decision should be assessed on the basis of the concrete circumstances of the case. The hypothetical reasons cited by Russia are unacceptable.
Russia has stated previously that it does not recognize the legitimacy of any arbitration rulings related to the annexation of Crimea. The Russian Justice Ministry asserted that “these tribunals lack the jurisdiction to consider such disputes”.
At the end of July, the Kyiv Court of Appeal recognized Oschadbank’s claim and authorized the execution of the International Court of Arbitration’s ruling to collect more than $1 billion from Russia as compensation for the expropriation of Ukrainian assets during the annexation of Crimea.
In November last year, the Court of Arbitration in Paris upheld Oschadbank’s claim to compensation for the seized Crimean assets. The Russian Ministry of Justice refused to recognize the court’s ruling.
In August 2016, Kremlin-appointed leader of Crimea Sergey Aksyonov said that the Crimean authorities do not recognize international court rulings regarding the “nationalization” of Oschadbank’s assets.
Aksyonov said that the “nationalization” of the assets was justified because they are being used to compensate for Crimeans’ deposits in Oschadbank, which he claims “disappeared” in 2014 after the annexation.
Oschadbank is one of Ukraine’s biggest banks. In March 2014, it had the largest banking network in Crimea.