Reorganization will be contested on a large scale

One of the largest reorganizations in modern history resulted for the Bank of Russia in a claim moved by the former bank owners. Andrey Isaev, one of the majority shareholders of the Baltic Bank, is dissatisfied with forced removal from owning and managing the bank. He decided to defend his position in court. The earlier disputes on lawfulness of reorganizations were not so significant, were limited to claims from minority shareholders or creditors of the banks, which were lost in 100% of the cases.

The claim moved by Baltic Trade House LLC against the Central Bank and the Baltic Bank (third party – Deposit Insurance Agency, DIA) was registered on October 17. The company, backed by Andrey Isaev, one of the largest former owners of the Baltic Bank (reorganized in August by Alpha Bank), who held the 49% share of it before the reorganization, requests to rule invalid the decrease of the charter capital of the Baltic Bank (to 1 rouble). Besides, the claimant requests to rule void the additional issue of the shares, almost 88,9% of which were purchased by the reorganizing bank on October 13. The shares of the Bank’s former owners Andrey Isaev (via Baltic Trade House) and Oleg Shigaev, who owned 49,877% each, dissipated to 0,000005% as a result of the additional issue. Similar removal of former owners from the management of the reorganized bank is one of the reorganization mechanisms stipulated by the legislation <...>

The lawyers also believe that the perspectives of this dispute are vague. Alexander Bolomatov, Partner of the Law Firm "YUST", thinks that, should the decisions of the Central Bank to reorganize the Baltic Bank be ruled illegal, the reorganizing bank will also suffer. He points out: “Material risks arise for that bank”.