REUTERS
The decision has not become effective yet.
Kyiv's District Administrative Court has issued another ruling in favor of a former owner of PrivatBank, which was nationalized in 2016, and revoked a decision taken by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) on the list of the bank's affiliated entities.
As the NBU said on its website, the decision, which was overruled, is one of the key mechanisms in the bail-in procedure conducted during the bank's nationalization in 2016 – the exchange of assets of entities affiliated with the bank for the bank's shares with their subsequent sale to Ukraine's Finance Ministry.
According to the regulator, the ruling may give grounds for entities affiliated with the bank's former shareholders to seek recovery of the assets returned by the state to the bank's capital during its nationalization.
Read alsoKyiv court rules PrivatBank's nationalization illegal
"The court's ruling has not yet become effective and, of course, we will soon appeal against it," Viktor Hryhorchuk, Head of Litigation at the NBU Legal Department, has said.
The court issued the respective ruling to meet a claim filed by Cypriot-based Triantal Investments Ltd controlled by ex-shareholder of PrivatBank Ihor Kolomoisky. The claim was wholly satisfied.
As UNIAN reported, the Cabinet of Ministers decided to nationalize PrivatBank in December 2016, guided by the recommendations of the National Security and Defense Council. Before the nationalization, the key shareholders of the bank were businessman Ihor Kolomoisky and his partner Hennadiy Boholiubov.
On April 18, 2019, Kyiv's District Administrative Court declared unlawful and overturned the decision made in 2016 to withdraw insolvent PrivatBank from the market with the participation of the state. The full text of the court's decision is to be made available within ten days. According to a joint statement by the National Bank, the Ministry of Finance and state-owned PrivatBank, it is impossible to return the financial institution to its former owners simply by canceling the decision on its nationalization. The NBU said it would appeal the ruling within the established terms or within 30 days since the moment when the full text of the court's decision became available.
Ukraine's international partners, namely, the European Union, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, have announced they support the 2016 nationalization of PrivatBank.
"We continue to support the efforts of the NBU to reform Ukraine's financial sector, including by introducing prudent corporate governance principles, and the Ministry of Finance's efforts to reform corporate governance in state-owned banks. It is important that the authorities continue their efforts to recover losses from former owners and related parties of failed banks," they said in a shared statement.