The appeal confirmed the debt of “Ostankino dairy plant” in the amount of 4 billion rubles to Raiffeisen and Unicredit banks
As it follows from the information in the file of arbitration cases, on Wednesday the court of appeal refused to satisfy the complaints of the bank "Vozrozhdenie" and the bankruptcy Trustee of Ostankino dairy plant Alexey Kuranov on the decision of the arbitration court of Moscow made in September. The judicial act came into force after consideration of appeals.
“Vozrozhdenie”, the bankruptcy creditor of Ostankino dairy plant, declared bankrupt in 2017, demanded to invalidate the guarantee agreement of August 14, 2012 between Ostankino dairy plant and Raiffeisen Bank International AG. Under the terms of the contract, Ostankino dairy plant vouched for the parent company, the Dutch Milkiland N.V., under a syndicated loan for $100 million issued to it by the "daughter company" of Raiffeisen in the Russian Federation and Unicredit in 2011-2012. The credit agent was Raiffeisen Bank. Since 2014, the borrower has been in breach of its obligations under the loan agreement.
The representative of " Vozrozhdenie " has declared in court that the transaction did not have economic sense for Ostankino dairy plant, the plant didn’t receive any consideration, all loan funds received by Milkiland were transferred to its subsidiary, mostly to Ukrainian companies. According to the applicant, the transaction, under which Ostankino dairy plant took over the requirements of almost 4 billion rubles, was concluded with abuse of rights by both Ostankino dairy plant and the syndicate of banks. The bankruptcy Trustee of Ostankino dairy plant supported the position of the applicant.
The representative of Raiffeisen Bank did not admit the claim. The court of first instance agreed with his arguments that “Vozrozhdenie” is not the proper applicant, as his rights were not affected by the contested transaction. In addition, as stated in the decision, the receipt of a secured loan by the parent company from subsidiaries and the subsequent distribution of funds between the "daughter companies" is a common practice in the world and in Russia for financing holdings.
In May 2017 Moscow arbitration recognized Ostankino dairy plant bankrupt at the request of the "Vosrozhdenie", which received the right of claim to the dairy plant for 309 million rubles from Sberbank in March the same year. The court introduced bankruptcy proceedings under a simplified procedure, as the company is in liquidation on the initiative of the owners. Until recently, the main owner of the Bank "Vozrozhdenie" was Dmitry Ananyev, who earlier together with his brother Alexey controlled Promsvyazbank. After the announcement of the reorganization of the last the controlling stake of "Vozrozhdenie" was put up for sale. In October, VTB closed the acquisition transaction of 85% of Bank “Vozrozhdenie” from Bonum Capital LTD Fund.
