Rasperia sues Raiffeisenbank to prohibit proceedings in the Netherlands
IJSC Rasperia Trading Limited (Kaliningrad) has filed a new lawsuit against Raiffeisenbank - the Russian division of Austrian banking group Raiffeisen Bank International. The claim was filed with the Arbitrazh (Commercial) Court of Kaliningrad Region on 9 June, where it was set for hearing and will be heard in closed session.
According to the case file, Rasperia is asking the court to prohibit the initiation or continuation of proceedings in a foreign court of law or international commercial court of arbitration located outside Russia. Rasperia's attorney, Igor Ozersky, managing partner of K&P.Group, told Vedomosti that it relates to an arbitration case initiated in the Netherlands by shareholders of the Austrian construction company Strabag.
In addition to Raiffeisenbank, Raiffeisen-Holding NÖ-Wien (which owns 15% of Strabag), members of UNIQA Insurance Group (15%) and companies representing the interests of the Haselsteiner family (29%) are named as defendants in the Rasperia lawsuit. Rasperia itself owns 24.1% of Strabag, but this stake is frozen due to EU sanctions.
"Rasperia has petitioned the Kaliningrad Region Arbitrazh (Commercial) Court to prohibit Raiffeisen and Haselsteiner Group companies from continuing arbitration proceedings in the Netherlands. If the injunction is broken, Rasperia is asking for penalties of about €1bn, including from Russia's Raiffeisenbank," Ozersky told Frank Media.
In January 2025, Kaliningrad Region Arbitrazh (Commercial) Court granted Rasperia's claim and ordered Raiffeisenbank to pay Rasperia €2.044bn (in May 2025, the Bank of Russia transferred €1.9bn from Raiffeisenbank's account to Rasperia under the court award). These were the damages claimed by Rasperia due to the termination of the deal to buy its stake in Strabag. It had been announced that the deal would take place in 2023, and Raiffeisenbank was supposed to buy the shares for €1.51bn and transfer them to the Austrian parent company, but in May 2024 Raiffeisen abandoned these plans.
In December 2023, the Russian JSC Iliadis signed an agreement to purchase all the shares in Rasperia, which would lead to a loss of control over the latter by businessman Oleg Deripaska, who is under US sanctions (beginning 2018) and EU sanctions (beginning 2022). Strabag reported that, according to notifications it received in March 2024, the deal had been finalised and Deripaska had ceased to control Rasperia. Raiffeisenbank was to acquire Rasperia from Iliadis, which was not under sanctions. However, in May 2024, Raiffeisen Bank International abandoned the deal because it could not get regulatory assurances that the transaction would not violate the sanctions regime. Rasperia and Iliadis were soon afterward placed on the US sanctions list - according to the US Treasury Department, for scheming to circumvent sanctions restrictions in order to unfreeze Rasperia's stake in Strabag. A little later, in June 2024, Rasperia and Iliadis were added to the EU sanctions list on the same grounds. In December 2024, Iliadis transferred Rasperia's shares back to its former direct owner, IJSC Valtura Holdings.
Strabag reported that the company's major shareholders filed a claim against Rasperia in October 2024 in an Amsterdam arbitration court. The claim was based on a 2007 agreement between the major shareholders, including Rasperia, under which, in the event of a change of control over any party to the agreement, the other parties had the right of first refusal to acquire its stake in Strabag. The company itself believes that such change of control occurred when Deripaska notified Strabag that he no longer controlled Rasperia. The arbitration court in Amsterdam, as the dispute resolution body under the shareholders’ agreement, should clarify whether the pre-emptive right remains valid after the agreement was terminated at the end of 2022 at the initiative of the major shareholders, excluding Rasperia.