MOSCOW, August 13 (RAPSI) - Cypriot company DRGN Ltd and the Russian Finance Ministry will negotiate an out of court settlement of a 142 million euro dispute regarding Crimea’s bond loan, a RAPSI correspondent reports from the Moscow Commercial Court on Thursday.

The court thereby postponed a hearing of the Cypriot company’s lawsuit until October 15.

DRGN Ltd is demanding that the Finance Ministry pay the debt on a local domestic bond loan of 1.142 million euros and interest for using the funds as accrued by the date of the court ruling.

The co-defendants in the case are the republic’s State Council, the Council of Ministers and the Finance Ministry of Crimea.

The media earlier reported citing an employee of the Dragon Capital investment bank (Kiev) that the lawsuit was filed because Crimea had not paid off the bonds worth around $5.65 million issued in June 2011. Dragon Capital guaranteed placing Crimea’s bonds and DRGN Ltd was their customer. The company holds Crimea’s obligations worth $787,053.

Crimea sold the bonds in 2011 to finance a solid municipal waste treatment project in Simferopol and the Simferopol Region.

In April, Crimean leader Sergei Aksyonov told RIA Novosti that the Crimean authorities had appealed to the Federal Security Service (FSB) to investigate the sale of the 2011 bond and the involved companies.

Aksyonov claims to know who provided the funds and why. He said that Nikolai Skorik, Crimea’s Finance Minister from 2010 to 2013, transferred the money to banks in Odessa that were affiliated with his friends where the interest on the money accrued.

Aksyonov added that a decision in the case would be made after the investigation is complete, but Crimea is not responsible for the debt because the money has not returned to the republic.