Ex-Senator Pugachev lost a lawsuit against Russia for $14.5 billion

The international arbitration in Paris rejected all claims of the beneficiary of Mezhprombank (MPB), a former member of the Federation Council from Tuva, Sergey Pugachev, to pay him $14.5 billion. On this today, June 22, reports the Ministry of Justice of Russia. On June twenty-second, it became known that, having considered the arguments of the Russian Federation, the composition of the arbitration refused to satisfy all the requirements of Pugachev, the press service of the Ministry of Justice said. Recall that in April 2015, the Moscow Arbitration Court found Pugachev and three other top managers of Mezhprombank (MPB), which went bankrupt in 2010, guilty of committing actions that led to the bankruptcy of the bank. According to investigators, the bank's management issued deliberately non-refundable loans and withdrew liquid assets abroad. According to the Deposit Insurance Agency, the court ordered Pugachev to pay 75.6 billion rubles. The entrepreneur subsequently tried to get this decision canceled in several instances, but to no avail. In 2009, Pugachev received French citizenship. In 2012, he renounced Russian citizenship. In 2015, Pugachev, referring to his acquisition of French citizenship in 2009, initiated international arbitration proceedings against Russia on the basis of an agreement between the USSR and France on the protection of investments. The former politician and businessman claimed that his rights as a French investor were violated. He demanded that the Russian Federation pay him $14.5 billion. But in court, Pugachev could not prove that he was a French investor, and also did not prove that there were any investments to be protected under the Soviet-French agreement.