News

The Prosecutor General's Office has filed a lawsuit with the Moscow Arbitrazh (Commercial) Court against Latvia's Rietumu Banka, the Bank of Latvia, RB Investment and KI Invest LLC, which is registered in Russia. Information about the lawsuit has appeared in the Arbitrazh (Commercial) Court's information portal.

According to RBC, citing a source familiar with the lawsuit's content, the Prosecutor General's Office is demanding the seizure of 100 per cent of the shares in KI Invest's authorised capital.

According to the Prosecutor General's Office, Rietumu Banka controls the Russian KI Invest through its subsidiary RB Investments, but in order to conceal its affiliation, the bank's representative office in Moscow submitted false information to the Bank of Russia, saying that it had no equity participation in Russian legal entities.

According to the Prosecutor General's Office, KI Invest owns land exceeding 1.24 hectares and commercial buildings and premises exceeding 13,800 square metres in Moscow and the Moscow region. In order to retain control over the assets, 100% of the shares in KI Invest, as well as properties registered to the company, were pledged to the bank, which "organised a scheme to withdraw lease income from the properties to circumvent the special economic measures introduced by the President", the lawsuit says.

The Prosecutor General's Office states that the payments were made in such a way that the amount of the principal debt increased rather than decreased, and this scheme was used as a tool to withdraw capital abroad. According to RBC's source, the Prosecutor General's Office believes that from 2022 to 2024, a total of about €800,000 and RUB 30 million was withdrawn.

As an interim measure, the Prosecutor General's Office is demanding the seizure of all participation interests in KI Invest and all the company's real estate, as well as the Latvian bank's representative office in the centre of Moscow.