Bank trust who is the owner. The court declared the former co-owner of the trust bank bankrupt
He managed to prove to the court that his case was politically motivated.
On September 28, the Westminster Magistrates' Court rejected Russia's request for the extradition from England of the former co-owner of the Trust, Ilya Yurov. A link to the decision was posted on the court's Twitter page.
Russia accuses Yurov of misappropriation or embezzlement on an especially large scale. After the transfer of Trust in December 2014, the banker left for England for reorganization. He was arrested in London on January 19 of this year and released on bail, according to court records.
Reorganization of "Trust" has become one of the most expensive - 127 billion rubles were allocated for it. By the spring of 2015, the Deposit Insurance Agency and the sanatorium Otkritie, which had taken over the bank's affairs, discovered a multi-billion dollar hole in assets. The money was withdrawn through loans from a network of offshore companies associated with the bank and its shareholders. In April 2015, the Interior Ministry opened a criminal case. In addition, the new management of the Trust filed a lawsuit with the High Court of London to recover the missing funds - $ 830 million from Yurov and other co-owners of the Trust: Nikolai Fetisov, Sergey Belyaev (they also left Russia) and their wives. The High Court of London seized the assets of the defendants, the case is being considered.
In Russia, Yurov is accused in three episodes, according to the decision of the Westminster court. First, Yurov and his partners, being the beneficiaries of the Cypriot companies Erinskaya and Baymor, took advantage of their position on the Trust's credit committee, which approved a loan to these companies for 9 billion rubles. The money was not returned. Secondly, Eurobonds bought with Trust funds were withdrawn to the Cypriot company Black Coast, as a result of which the bank lost about 1 billion rubles. Thirdly, 11 million eurobonds were withdrawn to the Edenbury company registered in Bermuda, also owned by Yurov and partners, again purchased with Trust funds.
The court refused to extradite, because it considered that the extradition of Yurov would be contrary to the Extradition Act, explains Georgy Baganov, adviser to the Word and Deed law firm, who studied the text of the decision at the request of Vedomosti. The court pointed to two circumstances: extradition is not allowed if it is aimed at punishment for political reasons, and also if extradition endangers human rights.
Yurov told Vedomosti that he avoided extradition because the court found his persecution "politically motivated" because of his connection to Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the Yukos case. In addition, the English court decided that Yurov would not be guaranteed justice in Russia, the businessman added. Baganov confirms this. One of the witnesses for the defense, as written in the court decision, indicated that Russia has a weak legal system that is influenced by politics and allows for influence on judicial procedures.
The court did not dispute that "Yurov was the main banker for Yukos in the 1990s," says Baganov. Since 1994, the businessman worked at Khodorkovsky's Menatep bank. Yurov was repeatedly interrogated in the Yukos case, the court was presented with a document relating to the criminal prosecution of Yurov, dated March 29, 2008, Baganov notes. In particular, the document contains the phrase that "Yurov joined a criminal group led by Khodorkovsky and [Platon] Lebedev to participate in the legalization of funds received from the sale of stolen oil." Yurov was a witness in the Khodorkovsky case, while the representative of Russia noted that the criminal case against Yurov was not sent to court. Yurov was among those named in the accusation against Khodorkovsky, and this was presented to the court as a possible element of political engagement, Baganov points out.
With regard to respect for human rights, the court considered that in the event of extradition, Yurov would not be guaranteed a fair trial due to the special circumstances of his case, the decision says.
On Sunday, September 30, Vedomosti asked Maxim Dbar, Khodorkovsky's representative, whether he considered the case against Yurov politically motivated. “We can confirm that Trust Bank served Yukos,” he replied. - Yurov ran the bank. Everything else - to Yurov. Dbar indicated that he could not provide more complete comments due to limited time.
Russia may appeal the magistrates' decision to the High Court, Baganov says. The representative of the Prosecutor General's Office did not respond to a request from Vedomosti sent on Saturday, September 29.-
Examples? Please.
There is such an amazing financial structure under the speaking name National Bank "Trust". There are national dignity National treasure(I'm not talking about Gazprom), but the national bank Trust is, perhaps, quite exclusive. But a very, very strange exclusive. If you notice, the face of the National Bank Trust is none other than the hard nut Bruce Willis, who receives millions of dollars from the bank for participating in advertising campaign. But this is only a distant hint.
Let's take a look at some mysterious circumstances today and then remember the days gone by.
So, in December 2013, President Putin announced that Russian companies with foreign jurisdiction would be deprived state support, including loans from Vnesheconombank. The President demanded that companies registered offshore pay taxes on Russian schemes. According to him, companies registered abroad should also be denied access to the execution of state contracts and contracts of structures with state participation. “If you want to enjoy benefits, state support and make a profit while working in Russia, register in Russian jurisdiction,” Putin stressed.
Many oligarchs immediately began moving their structures from their favorite offshores to the not very affectionate Russian land. However, some, to put it mildly, gave up on the president's demand, realizing that they have, with whom and with what to hide behind in case of emergency.
So the National Bank "Trust" diligently announces everywhere that it belongs to three Russian bankers- Ilya Yurov, Nikolai Fetisov and Sergey Belyaev. Moreover, he even paints percentage shares. We check, and here it turns out a juicy detail that the ownership of the Trust Bank by the three above-mentioned characters is somewhat simplified.
In fact, the National Bank "Trust" is 100% owned (attention!) by Cypriot offshore companies. As they say, a big hello to President Putin. And only then, part of the shares of these companies belong to Yurov, Fetisov and Belyaev.
Do not believe that a large Russian financial structure, where thousands of Russians keep money, is the property of offshore companies? themselves:
The main shareholder of the bank at the moment is UK TRUST CJSC (Russia) - 98.27%, 68.65% owned by the Cypriot offshore TIB Holdings Ltd (the main owners of TIB Hodings are Ilya Yurov - 31.71%, Sergey Belyaev and Nikolay Fetisov - 21.14% each).
Neaspal Investments Limited (Sergey Belyaev belongs 40% UKNeaspal Investments LimitedAndWinsala Investments Limited (Nicholas Fetisov belongs 40% UKWinsala Investments Limited.AND 9,60% UK Company « UK » belongsZaploma Investments Limited (Ilya Yurov belongs 40% UKZaploma Investments Limited).
Here is a diagram showing who owns 100 percent of the National Bank "Trust" and how. It is quite clear from it that Russian Federation the "national" bank has nothing to do with it. Except perhaps for the names of offshore owners.
And as a nice addition. The most “national” bank “Trust”, it turns out, in 2007 sold 8.92% of itself, beloved, to the American bank “Merrill Lynch”. Investment bank Merrill Lynch is one of the world's leading multi-billion dollar traders. The attitude of Americans from Merrill Lynch towards Russia can be understood from their opinion in a recent report "Given the developments in Ukraine, the EU may think about diversifying hydrocarbon supplies in order to reduce dependence on Russian gas." These are the partners in the US of an offshore national bank "Trust", positioning itself as a "Russian financial structure".
But that's not all. The National Bank "Trust", as it turned out, is doing quite well in Ukraine as well. And under the new self-proclaimed government, the health of the bank is improving by leaps and bounds.
So, the Ukrainian PJSC Bank "Trust" is represented in 13 regions of Ukraine. The owners of the bank are the same, but, of course, again through offshore structures.
According to N. Golub, Chairman of the Board of PJSC Trust Bank, after the political events in Ukraine, “the bank continues to operate as usual - it attracts deposits and increases its loan portfolio. We ended February with a profit (!!!)”. It is especially interesting that during the period of the seizure of power in Kyiv, the Trust Bank “suddenly” planned the opening of eight new branches in different regions of Ukraine, and two of them, in Krivoy Rog and Nikolaev, should be operational by the end of this month. It seems that after the victory of the Euromaidan, the bank "Trust" really straightened its shoulders in Ukraine.
And now it is partly understandable why no sanctions against Russia will ever be applied to, say, the offshore-American-Ukrainian National Bank Trust.
The current owner of "Trust" Ilya Yurov
with former owner Platon Lebedev
To be continued. And there will be no less Interesting Facts from the past years of Trust Bank. This office has a very amazing history.
The search for tens of billions missing in the bank is becoming more and more complicated, and its sanators are starting to sue the runaway owners and managers not only in London, but also in Russia
The story of the search for tens of billions missing in the Trust Bank, according to the regulator and the new administration, is becoming more and more complicated. The Central Bank announced the reorganization of the bank, which occupied the 32nd place in the country in terms of assets, on December 22, 2014. According to the regulator, Trust failed to cope with the outflow of deposits, a decrease in the quality of assets, and, in addition, tried to mask the problems with unreliable reporting.
By the spring of 2015, the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) and the sanatorium, Otkritie Financial Corporation, which took over the bank’s affairs, discovered a multi-billion dollar hole in assets. The money was withdrawn through the issuance of loans to a network of offshore companies associated with the bank and its shareholders. In April 2015, the Ministry of Internal Affairs initiated a criminal case on the fact of embezzlement of bank funds. Now it is being heard in the Basmanny Court. In the dock are former chief treasurer of the bank Oleg Dikusar and former financial director Evgeny Romakov. The former main owners of Trust, Ilya Yurov, Nikolai Fetisov and Sergey Belyaev, who, according to investigators, organized the theft, have been put on the international wanted list.
Since 2015, the new administration of Trust has been trying to recover most of the missing funds - $ 830 million - in the High Court of London from Yurov, Fetisov, Belyaev and their wives. It turned out in Russian court"Trust", as the injured party, filed a civil claim for damages in the framework of a criminal case on embezzlement of bank funds on an especially large scale, organized by a group of persons. The amount of the claim is 22.7 billion rubles, follows from the document, which Vedomosti has read. The bank asks to recover them in solidarity with the "persons who jointly caused harm" - the former owners, Dikusar, Romakov and "unidentified persons."
Those accused of embezzlement of the bank's property plead not guilty. Timofei Gridnev, Dikusar's lawyer, assures that his client complied with all the bank's regulations and checked documents before signing contracts. All offshore lending decisions were made by a credit committee, of which Dikusar was not a member. Documents for the committee were prepared by the Credit and Market Risk Directorate, Gridnev lists. "How could Dikusar verify the content of this array of documents?" complains the lawyer. In his opinion, the decision of the credit committee and endorsed accompanying documents are sufficient grounds for signing loan agreements.
It was not possible to contact Romakov's lawyer.
Offshore management center
Who owned the offshore companies that were so actively lending to Trust? Yurov assures that the majority belonged to the bank and only a few were controlled by the beneficiaries. According to him, offshore companies were used to "manage the accounts" of the "Trust" and did not cause any damage to it. The new administration of Trust insists that the former shareholders of the bank were the beneficiaries of almost the entire offshore network, and now they are trying to prove that empty offshores are the property of the bank, and those on which the assets remain are their property. For example, in testimony to a London court, Yurov claimed that the shareholders owned Willow River and RCP, which own the premises of Billa supermarkets in Moscow worth $100 million.
This whole story with offshore companies began in the 2000s. Back then, Benedict Worsley, an executive recruiter for banking executives, was recruiting in London, “with a focus on Russia and the former CIS countries,” as he himself later explained to the London High Court. It was in this capacity that he met Fetisov, and when he began to recruit personnel for Trust, he was introduced to Yurov and Belyaev.
In 2009, Yurov and Fetisov, at a meeting in Moscow, offered Worsley an important new job. They said that "Trust" controls a number of offshore companies. The shareholders needed someone they could trust to run the network. The owners of the Trust explained to Worsley that, among other things, it was "very important that neither the shareholders nor the Trust bank itself be identified as the beneficial owners of such companies."
Despite his lack of skills in the offshore industry, Worsley decided that his 20 years of banking experience and connections would make things right. And he accepted the invitation - however, he worked “on parole”, follows from his testimony to the court. In 2010–2014 Worsley "spent most of his time in Moscow", dealing with the affairs of the Trust. He occupied the largest office in a small mansion on Pyatnitskaya Street, set aside for the office of Columba Management LLC. Firm with authorized capital at 10,000 rubles. was established by the Cypriot Lyondale Overseas Limited (99%) and a longtime Trust employee Marat Iskandyrov, according to SPARK-Interfax.
In 2010, Yurov introduced Worsley to Iskandyrova as the future head of the "family office" that dealt with the companies of the beneficiaries of the "Trust". Yurov said that "these functions, which were previously performed by the bank's corporate development directorate, should be removed from the bank in order to reduce possible tax risks," Iskandyrov told the London court. 25-30 bank employees moved from Trust to the mansion on Pyatnitskaya to deal with office affairs. Since 2011, Iskandyrov has been listed as the general director of Columba, but, according to him, Worsley was the real leader. Iskandyrov assures that, on behalf of Yurov, he performed only the functions of an adviser, because Worsley did not have a financial education and experience in doing business in Russia. According to Iskandyrov, Worsley managed about 250 companies registered in Cyprus, the Seychelles, the British Virgin Islands and other jurisdictions. By mid-2013, most of the employees of Columbus Management were fired, their duties were transferred to the offices of foreign companies.
Worsley told the court that, although until December 2014 he was considered “a person acting on behalf of the bank,” many structures were intended personally for Yurov, Belyaev and Fetisov. “Since Yurov, Belyaev, Fetisov owned Trust Bank, I considered these gentlemen and the bank as one thing ... Now I understand that at that time some of the initial losses were incurred by Trust due to the instability of the market on Russian markets. The mismanagement of the bank by Yurov, Belyaev, Fetisov to the detriment of Trust creditors has led to an increase in losses, and I am cooperating with the new management of Trust Bank in order to reduce at least part of them, ”Worsley noted in his testimony.
Worsley now "regrets not having received an independent legal advice” regarding the activities of the former owners of the Trust. “I saw that the funds were mainly transferred from the bank to companies within the vast “family of Trust Bank companies”, ultimately owned by Messrs. Yurov, Belyaev, Fetisov, and back to the bank to maintain the balance of the Trust,” Worsley said. “At that time, I didn’t see any signs of the fraud that they are accused of now,” he continued.
Yurov pleads not guilty and claims that most of the offshore companies, including those mentioned in the Russian criminal case, were controlled by the bank and worked in its interests.
According to the testimony of Worsley, Yurov and Fetisov left Russia in 2014 to settle in London, Belyaev moved to the United States. Worsley himself lives in the UAE, as part of the criminal case, he was not interrogated, according to a source close to the investigation.
Iskandyrov works for the Trust and is a witness in a criminal case.
Only three episodes of lending to four offshore companies appear in the indictment of the criminal case, a source close to the investigation said. These are loans issued in 2012–2014. for Cypriot Erinskay Investment Limited and Baymore Investments Limited, and Eurobonds for Black Coast Property Development and Management Limited (in September 2013) and Edenbury Trading Limited (in March 2014). According to investigators, all offshore companies were fictitious and controlled by ex-shareholders of Trust.
According to the representative of the "Trust", all loans were unsecured, total amount debts of four offshore companies - 23.8 billion rubles. Of these, only 800 million were collected, and more money debtors do not. According to the investigation, all the companies were in fact fictitious. The companies did not conduct real activities, they had nominee owners and directors, employees and an office were absent both in Russia and at the place of registration or in any other places, the Trust representative said. These companies bought bonds, immediately entered into repo transactions with them, and withdrew the received money to their accounts in Cypriot banks, he added, noting that corporate governance was carried out in the interests of the former shareholders of the bank from one center, the funds were also sent according to their instructions and to their interests.
Meanwhile, Erinskay and Baymore from December 2013 to February 2015 had a credit rating of A - "high level of creditworthiness" - from "Expert RA". The rating is needed to minimize reserves when lending to a company and classify loans to a higher category, explains Valery Tutykhin, partner at John Tyner & Partners, a law firm that searches for and recovers offshore assets commissioned by Russian creditors. “If you close your eyes to the real circumstances of the emergence of the company and its business, then even a technical or fictitious company can be given a good rating - purely on formal grounds,” he notes. “You can’t consider such a rating fair, but this is a common practice.” Offshore ratings are a little easier and cheaper, because the cost of artificially creating profits on Russian company at least equal to the amount of taxes that will have to be paid from it, Tutykhin argues. The stable profitability of the company is one of the conditions for a high rating, offshore companies do not pay taxes, in addition, their activities can only be judged by papers, and you can look at the business of a Russian company live for verification, recalls Tutykhin. Expert RA did not respond to Vedomosti's request.
Iskandyrov, other former Trust employees and even Romakov testified that Yurov, Belyaev and Fetisov were the real beneficiaries of Erinskay and Baymore, whose lending formed the basis of the criminal case.
Yurov calls the case fabricated and blames Otkritie for this. He insists that he has already described how the Trust's offshore network worked "in great detail" under oath to a London court. According to Yurov, Romakov received “information about the alleged beneficiaries” of the offshore company in 2016 from Otkritie employees, while Iskandyrov received it from Worsley. Yurov accuses the latter of distorting information. Yurov considers Worsley's cooperation agreement with the sanatorium "Trust" a "bribe" for the necessary testimony.
“I proceed from what I read in documents and hear from witnesses,” says Gridnev. - Witnesses say that before they didn’t seem to know that offshore companies acted in the interests of the owners of Trust, but when the reorganization began and Otkritie Bank began to sort it out, raise documents, conduct checks in which most of the witnesses participated as former managers, the story with Columbus Management was revealed, everything fell into place.
The materials of the criminal case contain diagrams from statement of claim"Trust" to the London court, from which it follows that the offshore companies were indirectly connected with the ex-owners of the bank, says a source close to the investigation (see the diagram for one example of a connection). What illegal things did the Russian investigation find in the actions of offshore companies?
Mysterious Eurobonds
In September 2013, Trust acquired 61.5 million Russia 2030 Eurobonds, after which Dikusar, according to investigators, sold them through the conclusion of a trust agreement with a “specially sought-after” Bank Winter & Co” from Vienna, “whose employees do not were aware of the criminal intent of the members of the organized group. On September 13, 2013, an Austrian bank provided these Eurobonds worth more than $54.7 million (or 1.438 billion rubles at the Central Bank rate) as a loan to the Cypriot Black Coast Property Development and Management Limited, thereby depriving Trust of the opportunity to dispose of them at its discretion, stated in the indictment submitted to the court. Thus, Dikusar stole property - Eurobonds "Russia 2030", the investigation concludes.
Black Coast, together with Trust, owned the Stivilon company, which was building real estate in Gelendzhik. In total, "Trust" lent "Stivilon" 3 billion rubles, of which, according to the new administration of the bank, only 1 billion rubles were invested in the construction.
The main agreement on the transaction between Trust and Black Coast is about a loan in the form of securities for $61.5 million rubles. - was signed without Dikusar, he signed only a technical addition, which resolved the issues of remuneration and liability of the trustee who conducted the transaction, says Dikusar's lawyer. That is, Dikusar did not instruct Bank Winter to transfer securities to the account, Gridnev notes.
Negotiations on the trust agreement were conducted with the participation of top managers of Trust and Worsley, the beneficiary and director of Black Coast, a representative of Bank Winter told Vedomosti. According to him, Russia 2030 Eurobonds were transferred on September 13, 2013, the day the trust agreement was signed, from the Trust account to the Black Coast account, and on September 24 they returned back - from the Black Coast to the Trust account. This is known for certain, since the transfer of securities was carried out in the depositary of Bank Winter, respectively, "no one but the Trust itself could dispose of the securities or benefit from them," said a representative of the Vienna bank.
A Trust spokesman called the statement that the Black Coast loan in the form of Russian Eurobonds was repaid in the same month "an obvious lie" that "contradicts the actions of Winter Bank itself." The Trust has several letters from Bank Winter that indicate the loan is valid, he says. In addition, he adds, in the spring of 2014, the Vienna bank provided the Trust auditor with an extract from which it follows that by the end of 2013, Russian bonds worth $61.5 million were in the account of Bank Winter.
The parties are trying to defend their position in court (see inset). The loan is similar to a typical scheme in which a co-executor is selected in the person of a Western bank, usually a Swiss, Austrian, Luxembourg or Baltic bank, Tutykhin said. The bottom line is that a Western bank gives the Russian an extract indicating the presence of papers in his property, but the bank does not take into account the pledge in its reporting, the lawyer explains.
Missing billions
It is not clear why Dikusar is being held in custody, Gridnev is indignant. He used a power of attorney to sign documents approved by the credit committee: “Powers of attorney in a bank are issued in dozens, if not hundreds. All leaders regional offices work by proxy, anyone can be told: sign. If all the documents are available - what does he have to do with it? He performs technical function!" So Gridnev comments on the accusation of his client in the next episode of the criminal case. The investigation indicates that more than 10 billion rubles, received in the form of 14 loans from Trust in 2012-2014, disappeared from fictitious companies Erinskay and Baymore. Ten loan agreements, under which the main debt of more than 8.3 billion rubles has not been repaid, were signed by Dikusar, the rest by Romakov.
Romakov explained in his testimony: all committee meetings in 2014 were held in absentia, an already signed questionnaire was brought to him for signature (an analogue of the protocol for absentee voting), he endorsed it when he saw the signatures of the bank owners or senior management.
A similar story happened with the offshore Edenbury Trading Limited (BVI), however, the missing securities there are twice as expensive. According to the investigation, in March 2014, Dikusar entered into a depositary accounting agreement on behalf of the Trust, according to which Eurobonds (of the Russian Federation and Sberbank) for $89.6 million were transferred to depository accounting with Edenbury. The papers were not returned to the bank, and Dikusar was accused of embezzlement.
Edenbury is a company owned by TIB Holdings, associated with Trust, that is, the bank whose credit committee approved the conclusion of the agreement, Gridnev emphasizes. Signing an approved contract “does not mean theft” valuable papers. In his opinion, the investigation did not want to figure it out here either: “I signed it, it means I stole it.”
“Stories like this show that top managers of banks underestimate the consequences and trust their owners too much. But the situation has become tougher, and if some things went wrong before, then when the banks started to collapse due to the crisis, it immediately became clear that people didn’t really think about what they were doing, and now they will have to answer for it,” admits one of the financial advisors.
“It is written in the regulation on the credit committee of the Trust that its decision is binding on all managers and services of the bank,” Dikusar's lawyer says. “If he hadn’t signed, another would have sat down.” “If Dikusar and Romakov are imprisoned for embezzlement, then all banking activities in Russia to provide loans will become illegal,” Yurov resents.
Svetlana Petrova
Trust Bank, which is currently undergoing a reorganization procedure, on September 1, 2017 acquired 14.6657% of the voting shares of PJSC IC Rosgosstrakh. This follows from the information disclosed by the insurer on September 20. These data were confirmed by FC Otkritie bank, which currently owns Trust.
The former owners of the Trust bank have been prosecuted in connection with the withdrawal of depositors' funds to the personal accounts of the bank's owners using various schemes, including offshore Cyprus. In February this year, Trust Bank filed a lawsuit with the High Court of London to annul the transfers of funds from the former owners of the bank Ilya Yurov, Nikolai Fetisov and Sergey Belyaev to the accounts of their wives and use the property acquired with this money in order to compensate for the damage caused to the bank.
According to the information provided by FC Otkritie bank, as of September 8, 93.97% of the voting shares of Rosgosstrakh and 99.99% of the shares of Trust Bank were in its direct and indirect disposal.
FC Otkritie Bank and Otkritie Holding were selected as investors for the reorganization of Trust Bank, which applied to the Central Bank of the Russian Federation for financial support at the end of 2014. At that time, Trust ranked 32nd in country in terms of assets among banks and had private deposits in the amount of more than 144 billion rubles. Shortly after a three-day high-speed check, the regulator reported the "inaccurate reporting" of the "Trust". Detected deficiency Money significantly exceeded the initial estimate of 30 billion rubles, which the Central Bank planned to allocate for the rehabilitation of the credit institution. Based on the results of a comprehensive due diligence conducted by the DIA, Otkritie and EY in the first quarter of 2015, the assessment of the size of the "hole" in the bank's capital increased to 114 billion rubles, or about 45% of Trust's assets as of December 2014 157 billion rubles were allocated for rehabilitation. (of which 30 billion rubles were returned).
Over the past two years, the situation in the "Trust" has not changed radically. As of September 1, 2017, the negative capital of Trust exceeded 99 billion rubles. In the meantime, problems began already in the FC Otkritie bank, and on August 29, 2017, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation decided to sanitize this credit organization using a new mechanism - through an entry into capital with the help of the Banking Sector Consolidation Fund. The perimeter of the recovery plan included Trust Bank, IC Rosgosstrakh, Rosgosstrakh Bank and over 25 other legal entities. (At the same time, Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation Dmitry Tulin expressed the opinion that the purchase of Rosgosstrakh became the cause of the financial collapse of FC Otkritie.)
For your information
Since June 24, 2013, when Elvira Nabiullina became the head of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, about a third of all banks in the country have lost their licenses. Only in 2016 the right to practice banking lost 96 banks. But if, according to the reports provided to the regulator, at the time of the revocation of the license, the total assets of the “deprived” banks exceeded their liabilities, then in fact the sanatoriums discovered a huge hole in the amount of about 1.4 trillion rubles. as of the end of 2016. The amount of insurance coverage paid by the DIA on private deposits is not disclosed by the regulator. According to the Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-Term Forecasting (CMASF), 65% of banks that lost their licenses had holes in the capital in the amount of 2.1% of GDP, and the banks that remain afloat can hide holes in the capital in the amount of 5% of GDP in their balance sheets. .6% of GDP. One reorganization of FC Otkritie will require injections of up to 400 billion rubles, the Central Bank said.
Fees of IC "Rosgosstrakh" for the six months of this year, according to IFRS, decreased by 15 billion rubles, to 52.4 billion rubles. (against RUB 67.8 billion in the same period in 2016), payments amounted to RUB 50.8 billion. (against 55.7 billion rubles a year earlier). The total loss of the insurer under IFRS for the 1st half of the year increased to 23.5 billion rubles. (against 9.2 billion rubles in 2016), follows from the reporting of the insurance company. However, against the backdrop of the situation in banking the insurers' problems seem almost frivolous.
In the early 1910s, he owned a recruiting firm and had no experience in finance. However, it was he who was entrusted by the ex-owners of Trust Bank (before the reorganization of 2014 was one of the largest private banks in Russia) to lead a network of offshore structures for servicing bad debts. credit institution. Mr. Worsley even helped ex-Trust owners Ilya Yurov, Nikolai Fetisov and Sergey Belyaev get across to the UK, however, according to The Bell, with the beginning of the investigation against his employers, he began to testify against them.
The ideal mediator
Like many other banks, during the crisis of 2008-2009, Trust tried to hide its bad debts, for this he had developed a whole scheme. The bank allocated loans to a Cypriot offshore company, which then, according to an intricate scheme, spent these funds through various structures and returned them to the Trust to service the debt. This allowed the bank to stay afloat for several more years - its reorganization was announced only in December 2014.
An important condition The work of the offshore network was to create a distance between it and the bank. To do this, the co-owners of Trust, Ilya Yurov, Nikolai Fetisov and Sergey Belyaev, needed an intermediary to help manage offshore structures. This person was not supposed to be Russian - European lawyers, sensing Russian money, raised the cost of their services for them.
Yurov decided that Worsley was suitable for this role, with whom the head of the Trust was familiar - the bank attracted the Worsley Central Search recruiting firm to search for managers. Yurov believed that Worsley had many connections with the business community and "he exuded the pleasant spirit of the world aristocracy." The fact that Worsley knew nothing about offshore companies and did not speak Russian did not bother the bankers. In the fall of 2009, Yurov invited Worsley to Moscow to personally discuss the "secret matter." The Briton willingly agreed to the offer of the bankers, especially since his company in London was then declining revenue.
offshore network
To Worsley's own surprise, entering the world of offshore finance was fairly easy. In November 2013, he joined his new company Teos Corporate Services. Worsley hired a dozen employees and arranged loans for 250 companies. The Russians have long used Cyprus as a "back door to the European financial system”, says WSJ, so the appearance of another offshore company did not arouse any suspicion.
The main task of the company was to hide from customers, regulators and auditors bad debts"Trust". Every time the bank needed to service a large debt, the bankers instructed Worsley to create new companies for this. The bank gave them a loan, the proceeds from this transaction were lent to other companies from Cyprus or the British Virgin Islands, and then the money was returned to the Trust to service the original debt.
It took about $4 million a year to maintain this entire scheme. offshore companies offered by many companies. By tax matters Worsley was consulted by Deloitte, one of his companies was audited by KPMG, and the Cyprus branch of a Greek bank Piraeus Bank served accounts for dozens of companies from this network.
In order to disguise the beneficiaries of the whole structure, Worsley opened special trusts on the Isle of Man for bankers, through which they could completely anonymously manage their companies. It was not difficult to carry out all these operations - bankers, auditors and lawyers were familiar with such structures and did not ask unnecessary questions.
More than an intermediary
Worsley not only created offshore ephemera for the shareholders of the Trust. He also came up with various entertainments for them - he took them to Stonehenge, organized a boxing match for Yurov. In 2011, he helped Yurov get a visa and move his family to the UK, receiving $ 50,000 for this.
From the very beginning of their interaction, Yurov and Worsley created the impression close friends- they spent a lot of time together, traveled, introduced each other to their parents, families. Worsley even converted to Orthodoxy (and Yurov stood next to him and translated the ceremony into Russian).
Despite all this, Worsley himself considered himself a "paying friend" of Yurov. The non-drinking Worsley found it hard to have fun with the Russians, writes WSJ. Inconvenient situations arose, among other things, because of the language barrier.
The collapse of the bank and relationships
Despite the fact that his offshore structures no longer served the Trust, Worsley demanded more money from his shareholders to maintain it. He personally asked Yurov to transfer funds when he flew with his son to Cyprus. This aroused suspicion in the banker and asked him to provide him with statements. Looking through the accounts, Yurov discovered that about $300,000 had been transferred to Worsley's account in the UAE, and another $45,000 for the reconstruction of a house bought by Worsley in southern France. The Briton denied stealing the money. With a similar demand, Worsley turned to all shareholders. “Now I am one of the leading offshore specialists in Europe,” he wrote to the bank's former shareholders, while demanding compensation of $750,000 for winding up the network.
Yurov still needed Worsley, but already in his legal proceedings. Russian investigators believed that the offshore structure was created to withdraw money from the bank. The Worsley documents would have helped Yurov prove that he used the structure to keep the bank afloat. But Worsley did not want to get involved in a legal conflict between the banker and the holding.
In 2015, Worsley was contacted by Otkritie lawyers and offered to cooperate. The Briton was asked to help uncover the offshore structure of the ex-Trust owners, transfer the bank's assets to Otkritie and provide information about its former partners. The decision was not easy for Worsley. But when he found out that Yurov was going to sue Otkritie, the Briton decided to change sides. He agreed with Otkritie on payments of $32,000 per month for a year, as well as on the transfer to him of up to 4% of the assets that could be obtained from an offshore structure. Worsley was also promised that no charges would be brought against him.
Worsley's betrayal shocked Yurov. This year it became known that the former owner of the Trust filed a lawsuit against him in the High Court of London, demanding that he stop using confidential information about his assets, to pay for the damage caused by the disclosure of this information and the amount of the "bribe" (which, according to him, "Discovery" bribed Worsley).
Accusations and exile
"Opening" requires from Yurov, Fetisov and Belyaev to compensate $830 million, according to the plaintiffs withdrawn from the bank. Russian authorities initiated a criminal case against them, accusing them of embezzlement on an especially large scale using their official position. Yurov and his former associates say they were victims of a conspiracy. Otkritie, they said, exaggerated losses at Trust in order to pay off its own debts with the proceeds.
The former owners of Trust left Russia at the beginning of the investigation: Yurov first went to Cyprus, then to the UK, Fetisov also in the UK, and Belyaev in the USA. The Yurov family owns several properties in London, their own wine collection and a Turkish carpet worth $55,000.
Worsley moved to France. He was afraid of revenge from Yurov and even asked Otkritie to increase security in his house. He was also worried that the holding would not fulfill its promises and stop paying him money. He now admits that the entire offshore system collapsed due to banking crisis. "I found myself in the middle of a confrontation between two Russian players," he wrote in his testimony. No charges were brought against Worsley himself.
After Otkritie itself underwent reorganization in the summer of 2017, Worsley wrote a letter to his former partners, offering them to mediate a reconciliation with Otkritie in exchange for their help.
As reported by the agency "Ruspres", in 2015, the Central Bank spent a record amount for that time - 127 billion rubles - to reorganize the "Trust". Experts explained the generosity of the regulator by the special relationship that arose between the owner of the sanatorium bank, Vadim Belyaev, and the head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina.