MOSCOW, April 11 - RAPSI. The Moscow Commercial Court accepted on Wednesday the application by Imex Capital Incorporated Ltd on the withdrawal of its $35.94 million lawsuit against PIK Group and terminated proceedings in the case.

Earlier, the parties said that they settled the dispute. In this regard, the plaintiff withdrew its claims.

Businessman Andrei Oskolkov and the PIK Group entered into a contract for the sale of a 100 percent interest in Izh-stroy in June 2008. PIK, as the purchaser, committed to pay 1.835 billion rubles ($61.92 million) in four installments by March 2009, but then failed to pay the third and the fourth installments.
Oskolkov assigned his rights under the contract to Imex in December 2009.

Imex Capital Incorporated unsuccessfully requested payment from PIK and then filed the lawsuit with the Moscow Commercial Court. It seeks 917.9 million rubles ($30.9 million) in principal debt and 146.8 million rubles ($4.95 million) in interest.

PIK has contested the validity of the assignment agreement between Oskolkov and Imex.

During an October hearing, PIK and Imex asked the court to endorse their settlement agreement, but the judge refused as it was not signed by third parties, namely Izh-stroy, Real Estate Consultants Limited and Oskolkov. The settlement was based on the withdrawal of mutual claims.

Real Estate Consultants Limited was involved in the litigation as a third party as the assignee of PIK's claims to Oskolkov. The defendant holds that it is entitled to claim proceeds from the sale of Izh-story due to the unilateral termination of the sale-and-purchase contract.

PIK Group is a leading development company operating in Moscow and Russia since 1994. Its core business is large-scale housing development for mass consumers. As of June 30, 2010, its founders Yury Zhukov and Kirill Pisarev had a 22.5 percent stake in the company, 38.3 percent were controlled by Suleiman Kerimov's Nafta Moskva, and the remaining 39.2 percent were in free float. In January 2011, PIK owned 10.6 million square meters of land.