A St. Petersburg court has seized accounts and properties of Unicredit in Russia worth almost 463 million euros. The decision was taken at the request of Ruskhimalyans, a liquid gas production company owned by Gazprom, as part of a dispute. This was reported by Russian agencies. The measure concerns Unicredit Russia and Unicredit Ag, the German bank of the group that controls the Russian branch.
The application presented by Ruskhimalyans
According to what the Russian media explained, Ruskhimalyans had filed an application with the Commercial Court of St. Petersburg and for the region of
Leningrad towards Unicredit Bank AG, which controls Unicredit Russia, as well as towards other European banks including Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank AG. The credit institutions were accused of not having
honored their guarantees under a contract signed in 2021 for the construction of a plant of the Russian gas processing enterprise in the Leningrad region.
The lack of guarantees
The contracting company, the German Linde, had notified the Russian side in May 2022 that the works had been suspended due to the sanctions adopted by the European Union. The guarantor banks, in fact, had made it known that they did not intend to make the payments because these could have violated the restrictive measures decided by Brussels.
The Farnesina is activated
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is following the case of the legal action taken by a Russian court against Unicredit, Farnesina sources say, according to which this dispute will also be addressed in the meeting immediately called next Monday of the “Russia table”, activated by the minister Antonio Tajani with companies and institutions involved in the Russian market. The case – the sources explain – is linked to the issue of a “performance bond” by Unicredit and other banks on a contract stipulated between RusChemAlliance and the Linde consortium for the construction of a
gas treatment plant. The Linde consortium backed out, as mentioned, from the commitment due to the EU sanctioning regime and the Russian company demanded payment of the guarantees from the banks.
