Georgia: Lawyer Lasha Kalandadze reports on Bidzina Ivanishvili’s Credit Suisse

Tbilisi: Lawyer Lasha Kalandadze reported information about Bidzina Ivanishvili’s “Credit Suisse”. As Kalandadze wrote, despite the court ruling, Bidzina Ivanishvili has not been able to access assets from March 20, 2023, to date.

According to Lasha Kalandadze, access to a large part of the assets, including cash, was restored by the court decision, but because the decision has not yet been made in writing, the practical realization of access to the assets is not possible.

“It should be noted that the bank, as well as the trusts established by the bank, are aware that their illegal and criminal actions have caused harm, have violated the legitimate interests of the claimants, and are trying their best to create artificial barriers to prevent them from fulfilling their obligations in time.”

The public will focus attention on creating artificial barriers to the loss of saved money and assets, including criminal acts.

As it is known to the public, Bidzina Ivanishvili transferred most of the money saved from the crime to another Swiss bank. Credit Suisse could no longer have any interest on the mentioned funds as the funds were reportedly no longer being transferred to Credit Suisse, it was transferred/removed to another bank. Credit Suisse Trust, based on the island of Genze, remained the administrator of the assets transferred to another bank.

The function of the trust is to act in favor of the interests of beneficiaries, we will not pay any further attention. It should be said that the Trust was more or less successfully discharging its obligations until March 2022.Then gradually changed the attitude of the Trust towards the fulfillment of its obligations.

The Trust, for various baseless/fictional/artificial reasons, has tried to, at least, stretch the time to discharge its responsibility and avoid it, at a maximum.

The Trust initially cited “geopolitical events in Eastern Europe” as the reason for the delay in remittance of funds. The trust refused to transfer the funds for two months for the mentioned reason.

The Trust then cited a new excuse for not transferring the money – the European Parliament’s June 2022 resolution, despite knowing the European Council had not shared the resolution.

It was obvious that the Trust was trying, failed to fulfill its obligations. Due to this, the decision on the liquidation of the trust was taken by the appellants by the court. The case is scheduled to be heard in September 2022. Sessions have been postponed several times (October, November, December and March 2023). The essential consideration of the case was completed on March 20, 2023.

According to international practice, the liquidation of a trust is done by agreement between the parties, with the exception of exceptional cases. There are only two exceptions: (1) when there is a difference of opinion with regard to the payment of the trust’s management expenses and/or (2) when there is disagreement between the beneficiaries of the trust regarding the liquidation of the trust and the distribution of assets.

In this case, there was no difference of opinion regarding costs (there was agreement regarding the settlement formula proposed by the Trust) and no disagreement between beneficiaries regarding liquidation of the Trust.

On the contrary, there was a mutual wish and demand of beneficiaries. Although the liquidation of the trust should have been carried out based on an agreement of the parties, the trust rejected the agreement and indicated that liquidation of the Trust required a court appeal.

As a rule, one-day trials take place, according to international practice. Despite the aforementioned, the Trust has tried its best and arguably, with its baseless and artificial strategic moves, it has managed to reach the conclusion of the case.

Our local solicitors (Genesis Island) thought the case for liquidation of the trust would be over in one day, but their hopes were not fulfilled.

They then expected the verdict in writing to be available within a few days, but they were disappointed in that regard. One can say that they have the impression that, as the case was being artificially stretched, the procedures to formulate a written decision is also obstructed.

In fact, it turns out that the court ruling has restored access to a large part of assets, including cash funds, but because the decision has not yet been prepared in writing, it is not possible to exercise the right to access the assets conferred by the court. So, Bidzina Ivanishvili, despite the court’s decision, has not been able to access assets from March 20, 2023 until now.

“Finally, we will inform you that we will try our best to inform the society about current affairs”, – writes Lasha Kalandadze.