“Agroterminal” won a lawsuit against Privatbank
On December 7, 2022, the Southwestern Economic Court of Appeal accepted the appeal of LLC “Agroterminal” and annulled the decision of the Economic Court of Odessa region dated October 30, 2020 (case No. 916/599/18), which upheld Privatbank's claim against Agroterminal LLC “Borivage” to repay UAH 1 billion in debt, as reported by Finbalance.
According to court documents, Privatbank ended the loan agreement (No. DNHSLOK06924 of November 4, 2016) because the debtor violated its obligations.
Meanwhile, Agroterminal LLC pointed out that the loan repayment deadline set by the loan agreement is 03.11.2026, and therefore, the obligation to repay the loan has not arisen yet.
The lower court ruled that Privatbank rightfully used its right to issue a notice for early termination of the loan agreement.
The Southwestern Economic Court of Appeal refused to satisfy Privatbank's claim against Agroterminal LLC for the recovery of UAH 1 billion.
The appeals court stated that the conclusion of the local economic court regarding the grounds for upholding the initial claim and the application of the terms of the disputed contract, as well as the application of “extended terms” of such transactions by both the plaintiff and the defendant, is unlawful.
Context
According to Finbalance, on October 25, 2022, the Economic Court of the Dnipropetrovsk region upheld Privatbank's claim against Borivazh LLC (in case No. 904/6357/20) and terminated the loan agreement No. DNHSLON06941 (with a credit limit of UAH 2.87 billion)1, which was entered into by the plaintiff and the defendant.
Additionally, the court ordered Borivazh LLC to pay PrivatBank the overdue debt for interest on the loan from 12/26/2019 to 09/25/2020, amounting to UAH 230 million.
On September 21, 2022, the Central Economic Court of Appeal dismissed Privatbank's appeal and upheld the ruling of the Economic Court of Dnipropetrovsk Region dated June 30, 2022 (in case No. in the pledge agreement, the collateral value of the subject of pledge was determined in the amount of UAH 5.5 billion).
The aforementioned Agroterminal Logistic LLC acted as the guarantor for PrivatBank for refinancing obtained by the bank from the NBU even prior to nationalization. The subject of the mortgage was the Borivazh grain terminal in the Odessa region (located in the water area of the Yuzhny port, with a total transshipment capacity of 2 million tons of grain per year), and its agreed cost under the mortgage agreement was UAH 5.54 billion.
This asset was associated with the Privatovites.
As of July 1, 2022, PrivatBank did not owe any refinancing debt to the NBU.
Privatbank reported that its loan portfolio tied to previous shareholders stood at UAH 163.9 billion at the end of Q3 2021 (compared to UAH 164.3 billion at the beginning of 2021, and UAH 210.6 billion at the beginning of 2020).
The bank stated that in 2020, loans associated with former shareholders amounting to UAH 56.7 billion were written off from the balance sheet using the reserve.
Privatbank noted that “it will continue take measures to return the written off debt “(quote).
At the same time, Igor Kolomoisky has repeatedly publicly denied the information of the NBU and the leaders of Privatbank that about 95% of the bank's corporate portfolio formed before the nationalization were insider loans.</p
According to the statistics of the National Bank, as of July 1, 2022, the volume of non-performing loans in Privatbank's portfolio amounted to UAH 175.1 billion. The share of non-performing loans in the loan portfolio of Privatbank as of 07/01/2022 is 66.5%.
The appeal unblocked the consideration of the lawsuit on the illegality of the nationalization of PrivatBank
NBU lost to Kolomoisky the grain terminal court
