Today, on November 26, the Commercial Court of Cassation of the Supreme Court issued a final decision in the five-year case on the return of Privatbank to its former owners, rejecting the cassation appeals of Ihor Kolomoisky and the Cypriot company Triantal Investments Ltd. Writes UNN with reference to NBU.
On November 26, 2024, the Supreme Court finally confirmed that PrivatBank cannot be returned to its former owners. The court dismissed the cassation appeals of Ihor Kolomoisky and the Cypriot company Triantal Investments Ltd, upholding the decision of the lower courts to close the case on the bank's return.
The case was initiated by the ex-owners against the National Bank, the Cabinet of Ministers, the Ministry of Finance, PrivatBank and the Deposit Guarantee Fund. The court reiterated that the nationalization procedure of PrivatBank in 2016 was legal and that the rights of the former owners were not violated.
The decision was based on the provisions of Law No. 590-IX regulating banking activities. According to Viktor Hryhorchuk, a representative of the National Bank, this once again confirms the impossibility of returning PrivatBank to the ownership of its former shareholders.
Details of the case
PrivatBank was nationalized on December 18, 2016 due to its financial insolvency. The National Bank of Ukraine identified serious problems with the bank's capital adequacy, loan portfolio, and compliance with regulations.
After the stress test, it became clear that the scale of the bank's problems threatened the stability of the entire Ukrainian banking system. The NBU recommended that PrivatBank's owners carry out the necessary transformations, including the transfer of credit exposures to transparent businesses with real collateral that would ensure capital adequacy. However, these requirements were not fully and timely fulfilled.
As of 2016, it served more than 22 million customers, processed about 60% of the country's transactions, and issued half of the payment cards in Ukraine. The bank concentrated 40% of the deposits of the entire banking system. Prior to the transfer of the bank to the state, its shareholders were Ihor Kolomoisky and Gennadiy Bogolyubov, who controlled 92% of the shares.
On February 15, 2023, the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court applied the “anti-Kolomoisky” Law 590 for the first time, confirming that PrivatBank, nationalized in 2016, would not be returned to its former owners. On November 15, 2023, the Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal in Kyiv also recognized the nationalization as legal, overturning the 2019 decision of the DACK that had upheld Ihor Kolomoisky's claim.
The “anti-Kolomoisky” law, passed in May 2020, prohibits the reversal of bank nationalization and allows former owners to claim only monetary compensation. This law was a requirement of the IMF for a loan.
The nationalization cases, including the lawsuit filed by former PrivatBank CEO Oleksandr Dubilet, show that the former owners tried to challenge the process through numerous lawsuits. However, key court decisions have confirmed the legality of the nationalization.