ST. PETERSBURG, April 20 - RAPSI. The St. Petersburg Commercial Court will hear on June 5 the lawsuit by Sberbank Russia against Cargo JFC, part of the JFC group, for the recovery of $47.7 million, the court's website reads.

Sberbank is seeking to recover funds as per the surety agreement signed in November 2010 for credit issued to JFC, the group's parent company. A supervisory procedure was then initiated in connection with this in March. JFC was brought into the case as a third party.

The commercial court upheld Sberbank's request to impose arrest on funds worth 1.4 billion rubles ($47.75 million) in Cargo JFC's account and its property.

According to JFC, Cargo JFC, like Bonanza International, whose bankruptcy case is scheduled for hearing on May 15, acted as borrowers under a syndicated loan facility of up to $88 million and 1.5 billion rubles ($50.8 million).

According to the judicial ruling for the implementation of a supervisory procedure in JFC, the total liable claims undisputed by the debtor, amounts to over 15 billion rubles ($508.1 million) as of February 16, 2012.

JFC faced severe financial troubles due to the turmoil on international markets, as major fruit suppliers went bankrupt as a result of the Arab Spring, among other reasons.

JFC has previously reported that 30 percent of its products were sold to southern Mediterranean countries and the substantial losses sustained in 2011 were due to disrupted business relations, market share loss and unrecoverable debts.

Established in St. Petersburg in 1994, the JFC Group comprises fruit production, procurement, storage, transportation and sales companies. According to JFC, it is the largest fruit supplier to the Russian market.