Court refuses to send Baring Vostok case back to prosecutor's office
MOSCOW. Jan 22 (Interfax) - Moscow's Meshchansky District Court has refused to grant the defense team's motion and return the criminal case against the founder of the Baring Vostok investment fund, U.S. businessman Michael Calvey, and his coworkers, all charged with embezzling Vostochny Bank funds, to the prosecutor.
"[The court] hasn't granted the motion of the defense to return the criminal case to the prosecutor's office," the court's press service told Interfax on Friday.
The court held a preliminary hearing to determine that it would begin to consider the case on its merits on February 2, the press service said.
The defense insisted that the criminal case should not be considered on its merits in court, but returned to the Prosecutor General's Office instead.
Before that, at the pretrial investigation stage, the defense attorneys and defendants petitioned the authorities to terminate the criminal proceedings, but their motions were rejected.
The Baring Vostok case defendants have been charged with defrauding Vostochny Bank of 2.5 billion rubles through a non-performing loan received by First Collection Bureau in December 2015.
There are seven defendants in the case, namely Baring Vostok founder and senior partner Calvey, finance industry partner and French citizen Philippe Delpal, partner Vagan Abgaryan, investment director Ivan Zyuzin, former First Collection Bureau CEO Maxim Vladimirov, former Vostochny Bank CEO Alexei Kordichev, and former Vostochny Bank investment director Alexander Tsakunov.
None of the defendants has pleaded guilty.
According to Calvey, the case stems from a commercial conflict over control of Vostochny Bank and was initiated by Baring Vostok's opponents, bank shareholders Artyom Avetisyan and Sherzod Yusupov.
In late October, the conflicting parties, Evison Holdings controlled by Baring Vostok and Avetisyan's Finvision Holdings, said that they had settled all mutual claims in a conciliation agreement.
In addition, Vostochny Bank and the First Collection Bureau said that they had reached an agreement under which the bank would receive 2.5 billion rubles (the sum of the damage claimed to have been caused by Calvey and his colleagues) and would drop the civil lawsuit lodged earlier within the criminal case against the defendants.
The Russian Supreme Court mitigated the measure of restraint in the form of house arrest for all of the defendants and imposed an injunction order on them in November.