First Asset Management sues Euroclear for 185 bln rubles

MOSCOW. July 12 (Interfax) - Russia's First Asset Management has filed a lawsuit against Euroclear Bank in Moscow Arbitration Court seeking 184.8 billion rubles, court records show.

This was equivalent to about $2 billion at the Central Bank's exchange rate on the day the lawsuit was filed. The substance of the claim has not been disclosed yet.

Raiffeisenbank, the National Settlement Depository and JSC Infinitum Specialized Depository have been named as third parties.

First Asset Management has not yet responded to questions from Interfax.

Relations between European central depositories Euroclear and Clearstream and Russia's National Settlement Depository (NSD) were essentially cut off almost immediately after the start of the military operation in Ukraine last year. At the time, Russia, responding to tough sanctions, imposed currency and capital restrictions, while the European settlement and clearing systems closed ruble "bridges" and the option of settlements in rubles. The NSD, a division of the Moscow Exchange Group, imposed restrictions on transactions on Euroclear and Clearstream accounts at the beginning of March 2022 on the recommendation of the CBR. The European central depositories, in turn, restricted transactions on NSD accounts.

At the beginning of June 2022, the European Union imposed sanctions on the NSD, leading to its accounts being blocked at Euroclear and Clearstream.

First Asset Management (formerly Sber Asset Management) has been working on the market since 1996 and had 1.44 trillion rubles in assets under management as of September 30, 2022.