Former top manager of “Discovery” Spring was unable to sue the bank for his prize

The Ninth Arbitration Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the lower arbitration, which, at the claim of Otkritie FC, found it illegal to pay the former top manager Nikolai Yarovom a premium of 26 million rubles and ordered the defendant to return the money to the bank.

As follows from the information in the file of arbitration cases, the appellate court on Tuesday rejected the complaint of Yarovoy to the decision of the Moscow Arbitration Court in February, after which it entered into legal force. At the time of the payment of the award, on August 1, 2017, Yarovoy worked as an adviser to the advisory and analytical service, and previously served as senior vice president of the bank. The prize was paid to him, as well as a number of other former managers, for special merits in the work following the results of the first half of 2017.

The Bank of Russia, by order of August 29, 2017, introduced a temporary administration in Otkritie to prevent bankruptcy. The final financial result of the bank for 2017 amounted to minus 397.9 billion rubles, according to the decision of the court of first instance. The capital arbitration agreed with the claimant’s argument that the bonus was paid to withdraw the assets of the bank being rehabilitated to the detriment of its other creditors, including the state, at the expense of whose funds Otkritie is provided with financial assistance.

In August 2018, Otkritie FC Bank filed nine lawsuits against its former managers demanding the return of the bonuses paid to them on the eve of the rehabilitation in the total amount of more than 400 million rubles. In October, a former member of the board of directors Tatyana Serebrennikova concluded a settlement agreement with the bank in court, pledging to return the premium minus personal income tax in the amount of 43.5 million rubles.

For the rest of the claims, the court of first instance took contradictory decisions: half satisfied and half rejected. One of the refusal decisions no longer held up in the appeal: The Ninth Arbitration Court of Appeal on June 27 ordered the former senior vice-president for security Sergey Babkin to return the bank 30 million rubles.