Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners succeeded in defending a pool of European shareholders of  Moldova’s Agroindbank, the largest bank in the Republic of Moldova, by having an arbitral ad hoc award set aside.

The legal dispute arose between shareholders of Moldova’s Agroindbank, on one side, and Merchant Outpost Company and Boss Payment Ltd. (both registered in the Seychelles), on the other side, in respect of ownership to 28% of the bank’s shares illegally seized in July-August 2011.

On September 28, 2011 the Arbitrazh Court of Saint Petersburg and Leningrad region set aside an arbitral ad hoc award that served as a legal basis to write off the bank’s shares held by the Firm’s clients. Disagreeing with the trial court ruling, Merchant Outpost Company filed a cassation appeal.

By its judgment dated December 26, 2011 Russia’s North-West District Federal Arbitrazh Court upheld the trial court order and dismissed Merchant Outpost Company’s cassation appeal.

On this matter EPA&P acted in alliance with Turcan Cazac, a leading law firm in Moldova and a member of CIS LCN.

Agroindbank shareholders were represented in the Russian courts by EPA&P’s Ilya Tur, Senior Associate and Kirill Kochergin, Associate. The entire project was coordinated by Ilya Nikiforov, EPA&P’s St Petersburg-based Managing Partner.

“We are pleased to have succeeded in defending our clients’ interests. The court judgment confirms the unlawfulness of all actions of a group of individuals behind the offshore companies that attempted to seize the bank’s shares. We demonstrated well-coordinated work of our multi-office team, including our St. Petersburg and Kyiv office teams, together with our CIS Leading Counsel Network colleagues from Moldova”, commented Ilya Tur.