Russia orders: Confiscate the assets of Deutsche Bank!
According to a report on the website of the German News TV channel on May 18, a Russian court ruled to confiscate the assets of Deutsche Bank.
The website quoted Russia's TASS news agency as reporting that a Russian court had ordered the confiscation of Deutsche Bank's assets in Russia. The arbitration court in St. Petersburg made the decision in connection with a lawsuit brought by a subsidiary of Gazprom. The subsidiary, which operates a liquefied natural gas transfer station on the shores of the Baltic Sea, is claiming 238.6 million euros from Deutsche Bank. According to reports, assets of equal value have been frozen in the form of securities, real estate and account funds of Deutsche Bank and its joint ventures. This is just a portion of Deutsche Bank’s assets in Russia.
The court also previously froze the bank accounts and assets of Italian bank UniCredit in Russia. Other banks have also been affected. The background to the economic dispute is that the construction of an LNG transfer station failed due to Western sanctions, and the project had been guaranteed by a number of Western banks. As a result, the Gazprom subsidiary sued UniCredit Bank for 444 million euros. The bank's frozen assets are equivalent to 463 million euros.
In addition to Deutsche Bank and UniCredit, Commerzbank, Bayerische Bank and Baden-Württemberg were also sued in a St. Petersburg court. German companies have lost billions of euros of investment in Russia due to Western sanctions on Russia.
Russia is increasingly responding to Western sanctions with retaliatory measures. Many Western companies have had to watch their assets in Russia confiscated or frozen. Some companies that have withdrawn from Russia have had to sell their operations to local Russian companies at deep discounts.