Attorneys of WinnerLex returned to the client the real estate complex of more than 13000 sq.m. in the city of Dnipro after winning tdispute with the Deposit Guarantee Fund

Economic disputes over protection from raiding, unfortunately, are not uncommon in today’s realities. At the word “raider” the imagination draws thugs of gangster appearance. But the lawyers of WINNERLEX had to protect the interests of the client from raiding by officials of  state institution – the Deposit Guarantee Fund for Individuals. Here, as in a good crime drama, everything is mixed up: a banking dispute, greedy corrupt officials, fake documents, fraud with bank analytical accounts, “black” state registrars and, most importantly, a happy ending.

At one time, our client, a legal entity, received a loan from Aktabank JSC secured by its real estate, an administrative and warehouse complex in the city of Dnipro, with an area of ​​more than 13,000 sq.m., and made repayments in a timely manner. But the last payments on the loan coincided with the period when a temporary administration from the Guarantee Fund was introduced into the bank. At first, the Fund officials did not have any questions for our client. He was issued a certificate of full repayment of the loan, and also terminated the mortgage agreement. However, after some time, the new officials of the Fund did not like the last payments of our client to repay the debt, and they simply canceled them … while, on the one hand, they renewed the client’s debt to the bank in the balance sheet for the amount of “cancelled” payments, and on the other hand … attributed the amount of “canceled” payments on the bank’s debt to our client …

Further more. After these fraudulent transactions with accounting entries, the Fund officials turned to the so-called “state registrar”, who was given an old, already terminated mortgage agreement with our client, on the basis of which the “state registrar” re-registered the ownership of our client’s real estate to the bank managed by the Fund deposit guarantees.

Why the so-called “state registrar”? Because, as our attorneys found out in the framework of the relevant criminal proceedings, this person at the time of the registration actions was deprived of his status by decision of the Ministry of Justice. Moreover, while the registration actions were carried out from a computer in the center of Kyiv, the so-called “state registrar” was located on the territory of ORDLO not controlled by Ukraine and could not even physically perform any registration actions.

Our client learned about the raider seizure of his property only when he received a call from an unknown person who introduced himself as a representative of the new owners. It turned out that without wasting time, the Fund of raidership sold our client’s property to another person at an auction with one participant at a price several times lower than the market price.

The client turned to the attorneys of WinnerLex on the recommendation of our long-term clients already when the economic dispute was already in progress. Two lawsuits were filed from him by other lawyers. Based on the results of an operational analysis of the situation and experience in banking disputes, the attorneys of WinnerLex identified the mistakes made and provided recommendations to radically change the defense strategy. In particular, to completely abandon previously filed claims that would not lead to the desired result. Of course, such radical steps were a shock for the client, and a significant responsibility for our lawyers. But the client trusted our experience. Lawyers of WinnerLex prepared a new claim to the Economic Court of Dnepropetrovsk region. After the decision of the court of first instance was left unchanged by the court of appeal, the Supreme Court put an end to this banking dispute.

After consideration of the economic dispute in the courts, the lawyers of WinnerLex also provided legal support for the process of the actual return of real estate to the possession and use of the client.

Attorneys of the Kyiv and Dnipro offices of WinnerLex worked on the project under the leadership of the managing partner Anna Vinnychenko.

Features of the case that should be emphasized:

• the banking dispute was a complex project, which consisted of several cases of economic jurisdiction and criminal proceedings;
• a positive resolution of the economic dispute ensured, among other things, by the active use of the evidence base collected on the initiative of the lawyers of WinnerLex durong the criminal proceedings on the facts of illegal actions of the Deposit Guarantee Fund officials, in which the client was recognized as a victim;
• a forensic accounting examination was carried out, which confirmed the absence of our client’s debt to the bank, including on the basis of evidence collected in the framework of criminal proceedings;
• victory in the dispute was also facilitated by the positive resolution by the courts of another economic dispute initiated by an unscrupulous purchaser who intended to appeal the termination of the mortgage between our client and the bank;
• in both economic disputes, after the opening of the cassation proceedings, the WinnerLex attorneys proved to the court of cassation that the arguments of the cassation complaints did not contain the grounds for cassation appeal provided for by law. As a result, the cassation proceedings on the cassation complaints of the unfair purchaser were closed, and the decisions of the courts of appeal were left unchanged.