THE HAGUE, September 22. /TASS/. The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague does not disclose information on a lawsuit by a former Russian senator and ex-CEO of Mezhprombank, Sergey Pugachev, against Russia.
"If there’s no information on the website, it means the case does relate to the PCA or the data are not subject to disclosure," a PCA spokesman told a TASS correspondent Tuesday. He said if the PCA gets the permission to disclose information, "usually it appears on the website very fast."
Earlier Tuesday, Pugachev’s lawyers said in Paris that the businessman plans to make Russia compensate $12 billion via the international arbitration court. They said a relevant notification "has already been sent to the Russian authorities."
The statement by Pugachev, read out by the lawyers, says the entrepreneur "was illegally deprived of property and mining assets without compensation."
On Monday, Reuters reported that Pugachev’s defense chose the PCA in The Hague as the place for consideration of Pugachev’s lawsuit.
The former Mezhprombank CEO, who has fled to the UK and later to France, is accused of misappropriation or large-scale embezzlement and also abuse of office.
Russia’s investigators say in 2009 the bank issued some 120 non-recoverable loans worth 64 billion rubles (around $1 billion at current exchange rate) to economic entities under Pugachev’s control.
The investigators suspect that Pugachev also embezzled 28 billion rubles ($422 million at current exchange rate) of unsecured loans issued by the Bank of Russia.
In January, Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office requested Pugachev’s extradition from the UK. A short while later the former banker left the UK in violation of the High Court’s resolution.