Former BTA Bank chairman ordered to repay $400m

A court in Britain ordered former BTA Bank chairman Mukhtar Ablyazov to pay the bank about $400 million, allegedly a small portion of money he stole. The London High Court ordered Ablyazov to pay back $294,138,715.27 plus interest of 7.3 percent per year, which puts the total up to about $400 million, the Russian legal information service RAPSI reported Wednesday. "We consider that the court's damning conclusions about Mr. Ablyazov's fraudulent activities in this particular case -- and its dismissal of his defense as a fabrication -- further vindicate the Bank's continuing efforts to pursue Mr Ablyazov and his associates for the recovery of the assets stolen from the Bank during his tenure as its chairman," the bank's managing director, Pavel Prosyankin, said in a statement. The bank has filed 11 separate lawsuits against Ablyazov in hopes of recovering nearly $5 billion the bank says he embezzled. The judgment issued Wednesday concerned "a portfolio of 10 holdings of AAA-rated securities with a market value of about $300 million, which was allegedly misappropriated for the ultimate benefit of [Ablyazov] by a series of linked transactions, which took place in 2008 and early 2009," the court's ruling said. Ablyazov fled Kazakhstan in 2009 after the government nationalized the bank, putting it under control of its sovereign wealth fund, Samruk-Kazyna. He was detained by local police near Cannes, France, on July 31, but otherwise has been "a fugitive from justice since February 2012," the court's judgment says. He is wanted in Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine, RAPSI said.