MOSCOW, June 4 - RAPSI. The Ninth Commercial Court of Appeals has postponed its hearing until June 18 of the Severnaya Verf shipyard's appeal against the trial court decision to dismiss its lawsuit to recover $43.6 million from VTB bank, the court told the Russian Legal Information Agency (RAPSI/rapsinews.com) on Monday.

The shipyard failed to appear before the court on Monday, but instead filed a motion to give up its appeal. The court has delayed the proceedings, since the appeal and the motion were signed by different individuals.

The Moscow Commercial Court dismissed the company's claim for 1.47 billion rubles ($43.6 million) in damages from the bank on March 1. In the same ruling, it also turned down the shipyard's request for a loan as per the government executive order of September 8.

Alfa-Bank, VTB and Sberbank were obligated to grant a loan amounting to 22 billion rubles ($652 million) in 2011 for the company to fulfill a defense order.

According to the document the government was to act as the state guarantor for loans to the shipyard of $427.32 million from Alfa-Bank and $97.21 million from VTB.
Severnaya Verf claimed that it had been in correspondence with VTB and Alfa-Bank, according to concluded loan agreements. As the contracts had been signed and finalized, the shipyard requested the loans and damages as compensation for the losses incurred from being unable to make payments to contractors on time.

The Severnaya Verf shipyard is part of the United Industrial Corporation (UIC) owned by former Senator Sergei Pugachyov. Along with his other shipbuilding assets, it was pledged under 32 billion ruble loans issued to Mezhprombank, which later went bankrupt.

In February, the Moscow Commercial Court upheld the Central Bank's lawsuit against the depositors of Severnaya Verf shares. The bank sought execution to be levied on the shipyards pledged securities.