OREANDA-NEWS. On 03 September 2009 was announced, that "JSC BTA Bank has commenced legal proceedings in the High Court in London against Mukhtar Ablyazov, its former Chairman of its Board of Directors, Roman Solodchenko, the former Chairman of its Management Board and Zhaksylyk Zharimbetov, the former First Deputy Chairman of its Management Board, all of whom have fled Kazakhstan and are now living in England. On 13 August 2009, the English High Court granted an injunction order to the Bank freezing all of the assets of Messrs Ablyazov, Solodchenko and Zharimbetov (as well as three English individuals and one English company, who the Bank believes have been assisting them) around the world. This was on the basis of evidence put to the court that they have defrauded the Bank of close to USD 300 million through a series of questionable agreements entered into last year in favour of a company in which these former managers secretly held an interest. Through these legal proceedings, the Bank is seeking to recover the money paid out under those agreements. The Bank fully expects that further claims in relation to other aspects of the former management's fraudulent activity will be issued in due course."

Notes: A controlling stake in JSC BTA Bank was acquired in February 2009 by the Kazakh sovereign wealth fund, Samruk-Kazyna, as part of the process of easing the liquidity problems being experienced by the major banks in Kazakhstan. Not long after new management was put in place, it became clear that the former management of BTA Bank, including Messrs Ablyazov, Solodchenko and Zharimbetov, had widely mismanaged the Bank, with many loan and other arrangements having been put in place that were not in the best interests of the Bank, but rather in their own interests. The Bank has retained international specialists, the international law firm Lovells LLP, and the accountancy firm, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, to advise in relation to its asset recovery programme."