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Bank of Russia hasn’t received investors’ complaints over situation with St. Pete Exchange

Mikhail Mamuta noted that he cannot yet confirm that fraud has taken place, since each such case must be looked at individually

MOSCOW, November 28. /TASS/. The Bank of Russia has not yet received any complaints from clients due to the situation surrounding the St. Petersburg Exchange, but the regulator does not rule out receiving them, Mikhail Mamuta, head of the Bank of Russia’s service in charge of protecting consumer rights and providing financial services, told reporters.

"You know, at this point, after one day, they probably haven’t arrived. But I think they will come. Since what we saw yesterday is not even an abuse of rights, it’s a crime. Naturally, the exchange did not make any statements, but someone did. We need to clear this up," he said on the sidelines of the Focus on the Client forum.

Mamuta added that he cannot yet confirm that fraud has taken place, since each such case must be looked at individually.

"It could just be some kind of fluke, a stars-have-aligned story, but it looks like the market fell, then rose, and someone had the opportunity to make money on it. We consider this an unacceptable case," he added.

The head of the Bank of Russia’s service for consumer protection noted that investigations of this type of situation take quite a long time to draw a conclusion about what happened. But as soon as the regulator figures out what happened, it will publish the data.

"The exchange has turned to law enforcement agencies. And it’s doing the right thing, it protects both its interests and those of investors. In this respect we support it. Law enforcement agencies will look into it from their perspective, and we will look at it from the point of view of insider information, fraud, price-fixing," he said.

On November 27, there was information in the Moscow Arbitration Court’s files that the St. Petersburg Exchange had filed for bankruptcy. The exchange denied this, stating that its financials were stable and it had not filed for bankruptcy.

Later, on November 27, the Moscow Arbitration Court refused to process the bankruptcy application of the St. Petersburg Exchange due to incomplete paperwork and failure to follow the procedure of filing an application.