Bankers who convinced wealthy depositors to voluntarily give up their money, the rescuers of these depositors who received 127 billion rubles from the budget, but never paid the money ... Former owners Bank "Trust" were arrested in absentia, the prosecutor's office is already interested in the bank's reorganization. The financial recovery of the "Trust" as a result can cost the state a record amount.
IRINA BEGIMBETOVA
Vyacheslav Malafeev, like other eminent investors, refuses to talk about his financial losses in Trust Bank. Most likely, we are talking about multimillion-dollar losses: his own business (real estate agency M-16) brings the famous goalkeeper as much as a contract with Zenit. Malafeev recently spoke about this, but he promised to publish the exact earnings only after the contract with Zenit ends, on June 30. Perhaps, after this, it will be easier for him to make statements about Trust. However, in any case, the prospects for returning the deposit seem vague.
Since August 2011, the bank began to offer customers whose accounts began with 3 million rubles to transfer money from deposits to credit notes (type valuable papers). "Trust" sold notes to clients up to last day before refurbishment in December 2014. In 2015, after the introduction of the financial recovery regime, the bank canceled its obligations under the notes. It is not exactly known to what number of clients and for what amount Trust sold credit notes, but according to the estimates of the initiative group formed from among the victims, about 2 thousand people bought notes for about 20 billion rubles.
Since last year, securities holders have been trying to get their money back through the courts. As Radik Lotfullin, head of the insolvency and bankruptcy practice at Nektorov, Saveliev & Partners (the firm represents the interests of some note holders in courts), told Dengi, Trust concealed from its clients the true risks of acquiring securities. In particular, the bank argued that the client would lose money invested in notes only in the event of the bank's license being revoked and bankruptcy. However, the bank wrote off four out of seven note issues on the grounds that its capital adequacy ratios fell below the minimum value (2%) and the bank was subject to a reorganization regime. Such conditions were included in the subordinated loan agreements between the bank and the Dutch companies С.R.R. B.V. and CL Repackaging, which acted as issuers of securities. The bank wrote off the remaining issues, guided by new changes in the law on banks and banking. True, they entered into force after the introduction of the Bank's reorganization.
For the bank itself, the transfer of client investments from deposits to notes gave several advantages. "Trust" did not pay deductions to the Deposit Insurance Agency (securities, unlike deposits, do not need to be insured), in addition, the notes increased the bank's capital.
Most of the cases of holders of credit notes are considered by the Basmanny District Court of Moscow, which refuses claims from Trust's clients. “It is clear to us that the court is biased,” says Radik Lotfullin. “Otherwise, how can we explain the fact that the court ignored all our arguments and evidence, including the testimony of five bank employees, according to which depositors were not told about the risk of cancellation of credit notes.”
Note holders have so far managed to win court cases only in the regions: in favor of the plaintiffs, decisions were made, according to the representative of the initiative group Alexander Ochkov, in 20 cases. "I had simple strategy: transactions for the purchase of credit notes violated the law on consumer protection, - explains the logic of his victory Alexander Sergeev, head of the department of civil law and process of the St. Petersburg branch of the Higher School of Economics. - Offering securities to depositors who do not have the status qualified investor, the bank had no right. The bank assigned clients a status, but obviously in violation of the procedure, through imaginary transactions: clients were given five agreements for the purchase of securities for signing and immediately five agreements for their sale. And all in one package with credit notes!"
First, the Kuibyshevsky District Court of St. Petersburg, and then the City Court, took the side of Sergeyev. At the end of April, the decision of the latter entered into force. True, the bank can appeal against it in cassation within six months. Another of the cases, the plaintiff in which is the honored doctor of Karelia Vladimir Olshevsky, has reached Supreme Court Russia, which will consider the case on June 7.
Originally from MENATEP
Having begun to actively attract funds from the population, the bank tried to convince customers that Trust was a "tough nut"
Credit notes were just one way to mask holes in the Trust's capital. The history of this bank began in 1995 as a St. Petersburg "daughter" of the Moscow bank MENATEP, controlled by Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Menatep did not survive the crisis of 1998: in May 1999, his license was revoked, and in September of the same year he was declared bankrupt: his debt to creditors amounted to about 40 billion rubles. After that, part of MENATEP's assets was transferred to MENATEP St. Petersburg and another Khodorkovsky-controlled Trust and Investment Bank (DIB). According to banki.ru, MENATEP St. Petersburg received a branch network and card business of the bank, and DIB received most of financial flows Yukos.
In October 2003, searches were carried out at the office of MENATEP St. Petersburg as part of the Yukos criminal case. Almost simultaneously in "MENATEP St. Petersburg" and investment bank"Trust" (this is the name given to DIB) changed its board. Chairman of the Board of "MENATEP St. Petersburg" Dmitry Lebedev left his post. Ilya Yurov, who previously held the post of Chairman of the Board of Trust, was elected Chairman of the Board of Directors of both banks. At that time, both banks were on the top lines of the ratings of the largest banks in the country: Trust investment bank ranked 17th in terms of size. equity(5.18 billion rubles) and 15th in terms of net assets(36.74 billion rubles), "MENATEP St. Petersburg" - 23rd in terms of equity (4.12 billion rubles) and 14th in terms of net assets (42.42 billion rubles).
In May 2004, the top management of banks, headed by Yurov, bought both assets from the MENATEP group, and the head office was transferred to Moscow. In 2005, "MENATEP St. Petersburg" was renamed into the national bank "Trust": the banks operated under a common brand until 2008, until they merged into one national bank "Trust".
The bank began to actively attract funds from the population, and emphasized its reliability with the help of images of brutal celebrities. In 2009, the sportsman, actor and showman Vladimir Turchinsky was the face of the bank's advertising campaign, and from 2010 to 2014 the bank was advertised by Bruce Willis.
Clearly, the problems of "Trust" were identified in 2014. Although, as the Vedomosti newspaper wrote at the end of 2014, everything was clear to auditors with the bank back in 2009. Vedomosti got a report that was prepared by the auditors of Ernst & Young (today EY) for a failed deal: in 2009, Trust shareholders were negotiating a merger with All-Russian Bank regional development (subsidiary bank "Rosneft"). According to Vedomosti, which read the report, in mid-2009, 60% of Trust's loan portfolio, which amounted to 65 billion rubles. after deducting provisions, was attributable to parties related to the bank. More than 60% of such loans were issued for projects of the bank's largest beneficiaries - Chairman of the Board of Directors Ilya Yurov, members of the Board of Directors Nikolai Fetisov and Sergey Belyaev. The remaining share went to the restructuring of problem loans to shareholders and loans to friendly structures in order to maintain the Central Bank's standards.
In addition, the Ernst & Young auditors found that subordinated loans, which allowed the bank to increase capital, were received by the Trust at illegal scheme self-financing. Credit notes issued under this scheme were just offered to Trust's clients.
In 2009, Fitch Ratings also drew attention to the lack of transparency of some of the bank's assets and its relations with major borrowers. In July 2010, it assigned a long-term "possible default" rating to Trust, after which the bank refused to cooperate with the agency.
Throughout 2014, when Trust's problems became apparent, the bank several times approached the minimum core capital adequacy ratio of 5%. This happened for the first time in March 2014, after which the bank raised RUB 3.14 billion in capital. through the issuance of shares. But this "Trust" was only enough for six months: in September 2014, it again approached a critical point. In December, the bank planned to increase capital through an additional issue of 1.4 billion rubles, but the deal was cashless - the shares were paid for by the building that the bank rents under main office. The bank was finished off by the panic of depositors who, at the end of 2014, took money from banks. The outflow of deposits from Trust was small - about 3 billion rubles, but this was enough. On December 22, 2014, the Central Bank decided to reorganize the bank.
As of December 1, 2014, there were more than 144 billion rubles of deposits in Trust, in terms of the volume of funds of the population of banks being rehabilitated, Trust took second place after the Bank of Moscow (147 billion rubles of funds from the population at the time of the decision to reorganize) .
The bank is interesting in all respects
Former Trust shareholders Ilya Yurov (left) and Nikolai Fetisov (right) were arrested in absentia, their current place of residence remains a mystery
The FC Otkritie bank, which received 127 billion rubles for this program, was chosen as the sanatorium of Trust. from the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA). As reported by the DIA, one of the key selection criteria was the "smallest amount of funds" allocated for financial recovery. Director General of the DIA Yuri Isaev stated in December 2014 that "the 127 billion rubles allocated by the Bank of Russia for the reorganization of Trust Bank will be enough." However, a year later, Otkritie applied to the DIA for an additional amount for the reorganization of Trust, requesting another 47 billion rubles. Initially, the size of the hole in the bank was estimated at 68 billion rubles, but after a few months the amount of the shortage grew by 70% - up to 114 billion rubles.
According to Kommersant's sources, this growth was explained by the fact that schemes for "inflating" capital by former owners stopped working, and half of the shortfall was "scheme" assets.
As the deputy chairman of the Central Bank, Mikhail Sukhov, stated at the stage of making a decision on the reorganization, the reporting of Trust was falsified. In April 2015, the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Moscow opened a criminal case on special major fraud(part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) in relation to former top managers of Trust. Arrested on it were former and. O. Oleg Dikusar, Chairman of the Board of the Bank, and Evgeny Romakov, Financial Director. According to investigators, the defendants entered into fictitious contracts with legal entities registered in Cyprus, and from 2012 to 2014 transferred 7.05 billion rubles to them. and $118.3 million. Then the money was transferred to the accounts of individuals and legal entities associated with "Trust".
The suspects acted, according to the investigation, not alone: the former shareholders of Trust - Ilya Yurov, Nikolai Fetisov and Sergey Belyaev - were arrested in absentia Russian court. But the beneficiaries of the bank by that time had not been in Russia for a long time: apparently, they left the country immediately after the decision to reorganize. It is not known exactly where they are now, presumably in the UK and the USA.
There are several precedents in the Trust case. First, the bank is suing the former owners. Only the DIA has experience in prosecuting former owners in a foreign court, which succeeded in arresting the foreign assets of Mezhprombank founder Sergei Pugachev in a British court. In the same court, Trust managed to achieve a similar decision, and now a claim for damages in the amount of $ 830 million will be considered there: Trust believes that the former owners issued loans to their own companies offshore. With a number of Cypriot companies associated with former owners, Trust is suing in Moscow arbitration: according to Interfax, the total amount of claims is more than 37 billion rubles.
Another precedent is a repeated competition for sanitation. Otkritie has already applied for an "addition" of funding, but the Central Bank and the DIA now consider what to allocate additional funds without competition should not be. If Otkritie receives the requested 47 billion, the reorganization of Trust will become the largest in history (174 billion rubles). So far, the record holder is Mosoblbank, for the rehabilitation of which more than 172 billion rubles have been allocated.
The results of the competition are expected to be summed up on June 17. Of the major financial and credit organizations, Alfa-Bank showed interest in him. As reported by the press service of Otkritie Holding, the group will also take part in the competition. And this means that the Central Bank has no serious complaints about the financial recovery procedure carried out by Otkritie, which means that it is unlikely that the sanatorium will be replaced. "If Otkritie remains a sanatorium of Trust and does not receive extra money, the group will certainly cope with financial recovery, it has large resources, the only problem is whether this project will then turn out to be profitable for Otkritie,” notes Pavel Samiev, managing partner of NAFI.
The reorganization of the "Trust" and the allocation of additional funding for it, meanwhile, caused claims from the Prosecutor General's Office. In April, she sent a submission to the Central Bank, noting that the regulator, in principle, has not developed criteria for selecting investors, and the possibilities, procedure and basis for additional financing are in no way limited. “The main complaint about all these stories with additional allocation of money is the complete opacity of the entire reorganization process,” agrees Pavel Samiev.
In particular, the situation with payments under the same credit notes is not clear. According to Radik Lotfullin, who refers to the plan for DIA's participation in the bankruptcy proceedings of Trust, the money for payments to note holders was included in the rehabilitation plan. According to the bank's reports, in 2015 it reserved 27.1 billion rubles for these purposes. However, in May, Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation Mikhail Sukhov said that the bank could receive partial compensation for losses on credit notes. In general, whether there was money and where they are is a big question.
Sanctions against Russian banks, blocking of Visa and Master Card cards for Russians, pressure on Russian financial institutions, denial of visas, threats of blocking accounts and other little joys from the US and the EU. These guys cannot forgive Russia for statements about the illegitimacy of the Kyiv authorities and the desire of the Crimeans to become part of the Russian Federation. But at the same time, they carry out their sanctions very carefully and selectively. So that, God forbid, someone socially close, who is friends with the same revolutionary Ukraine and does not particularly strain about Russia, does not suffer.Examples? Please.
There is such an amazing financial structure under the speaking name National Bank "Trust". There are national dignity, national treasure (I'm not talking about "Gazprom"), but the national bank "Trust" is, perhaps, quite exclusive. But a very, very strange exclusive. If you notice, the face of the "National Bank" Trust "is none other than" toughie» Bruce Willis, who receives millions of dollars from the bank for his participation in an advertising campaign. But this is only a distant hint.
Let's take a look at some of the puzzling circumstances of today, and then think back to days gone by.
So, in December 2013, President Putin announced that Russian companies with foreign jurisdiction will be deprived state support, including loans from Vnesheconombank. The President demanded that companies registered offshore pay taxes according to Russian schemes. According to him, companies registered abroad should also be denied access to execution government contracts and contracts of structures with state participation. “If you want to enjoy benefits, state support and make a profit while working in Russia, register in Russian jurisdiction,” Putin stressed.
Many oligarchs immediately began moving their structures from their favorite offshores to the not very affectionate Russian land. However, some, to put it mildly, gave up on the president's demand, realizing that they have, with whom and with what to hide behind in case of emergency.
So the National Bank "Trust" diligently reports everywhere that it belongs to three Russian bankers - Ilya Yurov, Nikolai Fetisov and Sergey Belyaev. Moreover, he even paints percentage shares. We check, and here it turns out a juicy detail that the ownership of the Trust Bank by the three above-mentioned characters is somewhat simplified.
In fact, the National Bank "Trust" is 100% owned (attention!) by Cypriot offshore companies. As they say, a big hello to President Putin. And only then, part of the shares of these companies belong to Yurov, Fetisov and Belyaev.
Do not believe that a large Russian financial structure, where thousands of Russians keep money, is the property of offshore companies? themselves:
The main shareholder of the bank at the moment is UK TRUST CJSC (Russia) - 98.27%, 68.65% owned by the Cypriot offshore TIB Holdings Ltd (the main owners of TIB Hodings are Ilya Yurov - 31.71%, Sergey Belyaev and Nikolay Fetisov - 21.14% each).
Neaspal Investments Limited (Sergey Belyaev belongs 40% UKNeaspal Investments LimitedAndWinsala Investments Limited (Nicholas Fetisov belongs 40% UKWinsala Investments Limited.AND 9,60% UK Company « UK » belongsZaploma Investments Limited (Ilya Yurov belongs 40% UKZaploma Investments Limited).
Here is a diagram showing who owns 100 percent of the National Bank "Trust" and how. It is quite clear from it that Russian Federation the "national" bank has nothing to do with it. Except perhaps for the names of offshore owners.
And as a nice addition. The most “national” bank “Trust”, it turns out, in 2007 sold 8.92% of itself, beloved, to the American bank “Merrill Lynch”. Investment bank Merrill Lynch is one of the world's leading multi-billion dollar traders. The attitude of Americans from Merrill Lynch towards Russia can be understood from their opinion in a recent report "Given the developments in Ukraine, the EU may think about diversifying hydrocarbon supplies in order to reduce dependence on Russian gas." These are the partners in the US of an offshore national bank "Trust", positioning itself as a "Russian financial structure".
But that's not all. The National Bank "Trust", as it turned out, is doing quite well in Ukraine as well. And under the new self-proclaimed government, the health of the bank is improving by leaps and bounds.
So, the Ukrainian PJSC Bank "Trust" is represented in 13 regions of Ukraine. The owners of the bank are the same, but, of course, again through offshore structures.
According to N. Golub, Chairman of the Board of PJSC Trust Bank, after the political events in Ukraine, “the bank continues to operate as usual - it attracts deposits and increases loan portfolio. We ended February with a profit (!!!)”. It is especially interesting that during the period of the seizure of power in Kiev, Trust Bank “suddenly” planned the opening of eight new branches in different regions of Ukraine, and two of them, in Krivoy Rog and Nikolaev, should be operational by the end of this month. It seems that after the victory of the Euromaidan, the bank "Trust" really straightened its shoulders in Ukraine.
And now it is partly understandable why no sanctions against Russia will ever be applied, say, to the offshore American-Ukrainian " National Bank"Trust".
The current owner of "Trust" Ilya Yurov
with former owner Platon Lebedev
To be continued. And there will be no less Interesting Facts from the past years of Trust Bank. This office has a very amazing history.
The ex-co-owner of Trust Bank Ilya Yurov in the High Court of London filed a lawsuit against his former asset manager Benedict Worsley, Trust, Opening Holding and his former board member Dmitry Popkov (Vedomosti got acquainted with the claim, Yurov confirmed its authenticity ).
Starting around 2011, Worsley managed the companies of the beneficiaries of the Trust, and already in 2012 Yurov appointed him as the manager of his personal wealth. The lawsuit alleges that Worsley received a reward of 5% of the return on investment. In December 2014, the Central Bank decided to rehabilitate Trust, Otkritie Holding took over the financial rehabilitation of the bank. The former owners of Trust, Yurov and his partners Sergei Belyaev and Nikolai Fetisov, were prosecuted under the article “Misappropriation or embezzlement using official position on an especially large scale.”
After that, the new owners of "Trust" began to return the assets. In November 2015, Trust entered into a settlement agreement with Worsley (Vedomosti got acquainted with him), according to which he was obliged to transfer all information about offshore companies in exchange for a waiver of prosecution and remuneration. Popkov signed the agreement on behalf of the bank, according to Yurov's lawsuit.
Among the data that Worsley had to hand over were copies of documents relating to the assets of Yurov and his partners, information about how offshores were managed, as well as all messages that he received from the former owners of Trust. The settlement also included a "secret benefit" for Worsley, or a bribe, Yurov claims in the lawsuit. From December 1, 2015, Worsley received $ 32,500 per month for his services, in addition, the Trust undertook to pay him from 1.5 to 4% of the value of the assets that the Trust could return. The bank was also ready to compensate Worsley for travel expenses (business class flights and accommodation in 4-star hotels). And for disclosure financial documents certain companies, Worsley could receive another $125,000.
In the lawsuit, Yurov demands that high court London stopped the use of confidential information about its assets. He also wants to recover the damage that was caused to him due to the disclosure of this information, and the amount of the "bribe".
According to English law, it is possible to demand from all participants (who paid, who received and all the "dishonest assistants") the amount of the bribe itself and the amount of losses caused as a result of the bribe, says Yurov. “In my case, we are talking about the amount of a bribe from $500,000 to $2 million and about damage over $50 million,” he says. And he adds that at the end of February Worsley was personally served with a lawsuit in the UK, and at the beginning of March the lawsuit was received by Trust and Otkritie Holding. The lawsuit was also transferred to Popkov, who is now an adviser to the Board of Trust.
The representative of "Trust" declined to comment, Popkov said he did not know what he was talking about.
“As far as we know, Mr. Yurov's claim was previously dismissed by a New York court. Now he is trying to sue in London. Mr. Yurov can file claims in turn in all countries of the world - we have no doubt that the result will be the same, since his legal position is completely untenable, ”said a representative of Otkritie Holding. In a New York state court, Yurov filed a lawsuit against Otkritie Holding, as well as its shareholders Vadim Belyaev and Ruben Aganbegyan, where he claimed that they agreed to pay Yurov and partners $ 50 million for Otkritie to become a sanatorium of Trust Bank the agreement was oral. In December last year, the court refused to consider the claim.
Vedomosti failed to contact Worsley. In his testimony (Trust in April 2016 filed a lawsuit in a London court against the former owners of the Trust and their wives for the recovery of $ 830 million), Worsley said that, although until December 2014 he was considered “a person acting on name of the bank", many structures were intended personally for Yurov, Belyaev and Fetisov. “Since Yurov, Belyaev, Fetisov owned the Trust bank, I considered these gentlemen and the bank as one thing ... Now I understand that at that time some of the initial losses were incurred by the Trust due to the instability of the conjuncture on Russian markets. The mismanagement of the bank by Yurov, Belyaev, Fetisov to the detriment of Trust creditors led to an increase in losses, and I am cooperating with the new management of Trust Bank in order to reduce at least part of them, ”Worsley said then.
In the early 1910s, he owned a recruiting firm and had no experience in finance. However, it was he who was entrusted by the ex-owners of Trust Bank (before the reorganization of 2014 was one of the largest private banks in Russia) to lead a network of offshore structures for servicing bad debts. credit institution. Mr. Worsley even helped ex-Trust owners Ilya Yurov, Nikolai Fetisov and Sergey Belyaev get over to the UK, however, according to The Bell, with the beginning of the investigation against his employers, he began to testify against them.
The ideal mediator
Like many other banks, during the crisis of 2008-2009, Trust tried to hide its bad debts, for this he had developed a whole scheme. The bank allocated loans to a Cypriot offshore company, which then, according to an intricate scheme, spent these funds through various structures and returned them to the Trust to service the debt. This allowed the bank to stay afloat for several more years - its reorganization was announced only in December 2014.
An important condition The work of the offshore network was to create a distance between it and the bank. To do this, the co-owners of Trust, Ilya Yurov, Nikolai Fetisov and Sergey Belyaev, needed an intermediary to help manage offshore structures. This person was not supposed to be Russian - European lawyers, sensing Russian money, raised the cost of their services for them.
Yurov decided that Worsley was suitable for this role, with whom the head of the Trust was familiar - the bank attracted the Worsley Central Search recruiting firm to search for managers. Yurov believed that Worsley had many connections with the business community and "he exuded the pleasant spirit of the world aristocracy." The fact that Worsley knew nothing about offshore companies and did not speak Russian did not bother the bankers. In the fall of 2009, Yurov invited Worsley to Moscow to personally discuss the "secret matter." The Briton willingly agreed to the offer of the bankers, especially since his company in London was then declining revenue.
offshore network
To Worsley's own surprise, entering the world of offshore finance was fairly easy. In November 2013, he joined his new company Teos Corporate Services. Worsley hired a dozen employees and arranged loans for 250 companies. The Russians have long used Cyprus as a "back door to the European financial system”, says WSJ, so the appearance of another offshore company did not arouse any suspicion.
The main task of the company was to hide the bad debts of the Trust from clients, regulators and auditors. Every time the bank needed to service a large debt, the bankers instructed Worsley to create new companies for this. The bank gave them a loan, the proceeds from this transaction were lent to other companies from Cyprus or the British Virgin Islands, and then the money was returned to the Trust to service the original debt.
It took about $4 million a year to maintain this entire scheme. Many firms offered their services to offshore companies. By tax matters Worsley was consulted by Deloitte, one of his companies was audited by KPMG, and the Cyprus branch of a Greek bank Piraeus Bank served accounts for dozens of companies from this network.
In order to disguise the beneficiaries of the entire structure, Worsley opened special trusts on the Isle of Man for bankers, through which they could completely anonymously manage their companies. It was not difficult to carry out all these operations - bankers, auditors and lawyers were familiar with such structures and did not ask unnecessary questions.
More than an intermediary
Worsley not only created offshore ephemera for the shareholders of the Trust. He also came up with various entertainments for them - he took them to Stonehenge, organized a boxing match for Yurov. In 2011, he helped Yurov get a visa and move his family to the UK, receiving $ 50,000 for this.
From the very beginning of their interaction, Yurov and Worsley created the impression close friends- they spent a lot of time together, traveled, introduced each other to their parents, families. Worsley even converted to Orthodoxy (and Yurov stood next to him and translated the ceremony into Russian).
Despite all this, Worsley himself considered himself a "paying friend" of Yurov. The non-drinking Worsley found it hard to have fun with the Russians, writes WSJ. Inconvenient situations arose, among other things, because of the language barrier.
The collapse of the bank and relationships
Despite the fact that his offshore structures no longer served the Trust, Worsley demanded more money from his shareholders to maintain it. He personally asked Yurov to transfer funds when he flew with his son to Cyprus. This aroused suspicion in the banker and asked him to provide him with statements. Looking through the accounts, Yurov discovered that about $300,000 had been transferred to Worsley's account in the UAE, and another $45,000 for the reconstruction of a house bought by Worsley in southern France. The Briton denied stealing the money. With a similar demand, Worsley turned to all shareholders. “Now I am one of the leading offshore specialists in Europe,” he wrote to the bank's former shareholders, while demanding compensation of $750,000 for winding up the network.
Yurov still needed Worsley, but already in his legal proceedings. Russian investigators believed that the offshore structure was created to withdraw money from the bank. The Worsley documents would have helped Yurov prove that he used the structure to keep the bank afloat. But Worsley did not want to get involved in a legal conflict between the banker and the holding.
In 2015, Worsley was contacted by Otkritie lawyers and offered to cooperate. The Briton was asked to help uncover the offshore structure of the ex-Trust owners, transfer the bank's assets to Otkritie and provide information about its former partners. The decision was not easy for Worsley. But when he found out that Yurov was going to sue Otkritie, the Briton decided to change sides. He agreed with Otkritie on payments of $32,000 per month for a year, as well as on the transfer to him of up to 4% of the assets that could be obtained from an offshore structure. Worsley was also promised that no charges would be brought against him.
Worsley's betrayal shocked Yurov. This year it became known that the former owner of the "Trust" filed a lawsuit against him in the High Court of London, demanding to stop using confidential information about his assets, pay the damage caused by the disclosure of this information and the amount of the "bribe" (which, according to him, " Discovery bribed Worsley).
Accusations and exile
"Opening" requires from Yurov, Fetisov and Belyaev to compensate $830 million, according to the plaintiffs withdrawn from the bank. The Russian authorities opened a criminal case against them, accusing them of embezzlement on an especially large scale using their official position. Yurov and his former associates say they were victims of a conspiracy. Otkritie, they said, exaggerated losses at Trust in order to pay off its own debts with the proceeds.
The former owners of Trust left Russia at the beginning of the investigation: Yurov first went to Cyprus, then to the UK, Fetisov also in the UK, and Belyaev in the USA. The Yurov family owns several properties in London, their own wine collection and a Turkish carpet worth $55,000.
Worsley moved to France. He was afraid of revenge from Yurov and even asked Otkritie to increase security in his house. He was also worried that the holding would not fulfill its promises and stop paying him money. He now admits that the entire offshore system collapsed due to banking crisis. “I found myself in the middle of a confrontation between two Russian players", he wrote in his testimony. No charges were brought against Worsley himself.
After Otkritie itself underwent reorganization in the summer of 2017, Worsley wrote a letter to his former partners, offering them to mediate a reconciliation with Otkritie in exchange for their help.
As reported by the agency "Ruspres", in 2015, the Central Bank spent a record amount for that time - 127 billion rubles - to reorganize the "Trust". Experts explained the generosity of the regulator by the special relationship that arose between the owner of the sanatorium bank, Vadim Belyaev, and the head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina.