In this trial before Mr Justice Bryan, the Claimant, National Bank Trust (the “Bank”/“NBT”) brings claims under Russian law against its former majority owners, Mr Yurov, Mr Belyaev and Mr Fetisov (the First, Second and Third Defendants) (the “Shareholders”/“YBF”), who were members of its Supervisory Board. The Bank’s case is that Mr Yurov, Mr Belyaev and Mr Fetisov orchestrated a massive fraud over many years which it says involved, amongst other things, the Shareholders procuring the Bank to “loan” around US$1 billion (the experts have agreed a figure of US$1.062 billion of which US$854 million is the outstanding loan principal) to what are said to be their own companies as part of a scheme which it was said was intended deliberately to falsify the Bank’s accounts, conceal bad debts and related-party lending, and deceive the Central Bank of Russia (the “CBR”), the Bank’s auditors, and ordinary Russians savers who were persuaded to deposit their funds with the Bank. It is said that the fraud led to the Bank’s collapse in December 2014, when it was rescued by a bailout of more than US$1 billion funded by the Russian taxpayer.
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