The court in St. Petersburg ordered the freezing of the funds of the American banking giant “JP Morgan Chase” in favor of the second largest Russian lender “VTB”.
A Russian bank has filed a lawsuit seeking the return of $439.5 million frozen abroad amid Western sanctions.
VTB sued JP Morgan and its subsidiaries in the Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region on April 17, court filings show.
The court ordered the seizure of all funds in bank accounts of “JP Morgan” in Russia, including correspondent accounts and those opened in the name of the subsidiary.
It was also revealed that VTB requested interim measures because the other party was “taking steps to withdraw its assets” from Russia while the Russian lender was seeking to recover money from the US bank.
“JP Morgan” tried to stop the Russian bank’s efforts with its own lawsuit against “VTB” filed last week in the Southern District of New York, pointing out that American law prohibits the bank from unfreezing the 439.5 million dollars owned by “VTB”.
JP Morgan officials told Reuters last week that they were worried that VTB would try to seize the US bank’s assets in Russia, and that the Russian bank’s prospects were good, since Russian courts had ruled in favor of at least six other local banks against American and European institutions that were obliged to comply with the law on sanctions, reports RT Balkan.
