PrivatBank announces undisputed victory in London trial against Kolomoisky and Boholiubov
Nationalized PrivatBank in Ukraine has won an undisputed victory in a multibillion-dollar English trial against former owners Ihor Kolomoisky and Hennadiy Boholiubov, the financial institution said in a statement on Wednesday after the judge in London began announcing the decision.
The bank said that the information will be updated.
As reported, Justice William Trower of the High Court in London was set to deliver a verdict at 12:30 p.m. Kyiv time on Wednesday in a lawsuit filed back in December 2017 by the nationalized PrivatBank against its former owners, Kolomoisky and Boholiubov, as well as six other companies: Teamtrend Limited, Trade Point Agro Limited, Collyer Limited, Rossyn Investing Corp, Milbert Ventures Inc and ZAO Ukrtransitservice Ltd.
A year after its nationalization in December 2016, PrivatBank filed a claim in the High Court of London against its former owners Kolomoisky and Boholiubov, along with six UK-based companies allegedly linked to them. The bank obtained a court order freezing their global assets valued at more than $2.5 billion.
However, on December 4, 2018, the High Court ruled that it did not have jurisdiction over PrivatBank's lawsuit, concluding that the claim was brought against the UK companies solely to bring Kolomoisky and Boholiubov within the court's reach. PrivatBank appealed the decision, and on October 15, 2019, the Court of Appeal of England and Wales ruled in the bank's favor. The asset-freezing order remained in place pending a final judgment on the merits of the case.
Final hearings in the High Court began in mid-June 2023, having been previously postponed due to the war. PrivatBank stated that by then, the value of the claim had grown from the initial $1.9 billion to nearly $4.5 billion, as interest was accruing at approximately $500,000 per day. The global asset-freezing order remained in effect.
PrivatBank has described the case as involving "fraud on an epic scale," masked by large-scale money laundering committed against the bank in 2013–2014 by its former owners Kolomoisky and Boholiubov. In written submissions, the bank's legal representative, Andrew Hunter, argued that there is ample evidence proving the misappropriation and the defendants' involvement.
In contrast, the defense for Kolomoisky and Boholiubov denied the allegations, maintaining that the bank had failed to identify any specific actions by the former owners that were unlawful under Ukrainian law or that directly caused losses to the bank.
