MOSCOW, July 29 (RAPSI) – Russian billionaire Sergei Pugachev submitted an appeal against a court ruling to collect over 75.6 billion rubles ($1.25 billion) in debt, according to a statement of the Moscow District Commercial Court released on Wednesday.

On April 30, the Moscow Commercial Court ruled in favor of the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) in a lawsuit filed to declare Pugachev and other Mezhprombank executives guilty of knowingly bankrupting the bank, primarily through the transfer of liquid assets.

The court decided to debit 75.6 billion rubles ($1.25bln) from Pugachev, including 68.5 billion rubles from Pugachev and Marina Illarionova, the last CEO of Mezhprombank, and 7.16 billion rubles from two former chief executives, Alexander Didenko and Alexei Zlobin.

This was the largest amount ever assigned for secondary liability in Russia.

On June 24, the Ninth Commercial Court of Appeals upheld the Moscow Commercial Court’s ruling. Pugachev, as well as Didenko and Zlobin have filed appeals against the decision.

Last year, the DIA filed a lawsuit at a UK court to collect the assets which Pugachev allegedly embezzled from Mezhprombank. In July 2014, London’s High Court granted an injunction to seize $2 billion worth of Pugachev’s assets in various countries.

Pugachev appealed the decision, but in December 2014 London’s High Court refused to release his assets.

The Moscow Commercial Court declared Mezhprombank bankrupt in November 2010 after the bank defaulted and received a 40-billion-ruble bailout from Russia’s Central Bank. The DIA was appointed liquidator of Mezhprombank’s assets.

An investigation into the bankruptcy was launched in January 2011 on suspicion of “illegal operations in the process of filing for bankruptcy and deliberate bankruptcy.”

Pugachev was eventually charged with embezzlement and arrested in absentia. In November 2014, he was put on the international wanted list.
In January 2015, Russia sent a request for extradition to the UK.