Details of the lawsuit, which also affects Raiffeisenbank Russia, were published last week by the Moscow newspaper “Vedomosti”: Rasperia not only wants money, but also wants to force through court that its Strabag shares are taken over by the Russian Raiffeisenbank. Rasperia Trading Limited, formerly controlled by the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, is demanding two billion euros from the defendants, which consists of Strabag’s share capital, unpaid dividends and interest, the business newspaper wrote last Wednesday with reference to “materials” from the case. The requested sum should be obtained from the Russian Raiffeisenbank. According to the plaintiff’s request, ownership rights to the Strabag shares held by Rasperia should also be transferred to the bank, which is currently not allowed to be sold following an interim injunction as part of these proceedings. In essence, the collapsed deal from May 2024 should be implemented, commented “Vedomosti”.
Between December 2023 and May 2024, RBI and its Russian subsidiary bank pursued the plan to take over Rasperia’s Strabag shares and transfer them from Raiffeisenbank Russia to the RBI parent company as a dividend in kind. A few days after this plan was abandoned by the RBI in connection with sanctions risks, the USA and the EU also sanctioned Rasperia itself. This company had been controlled for a long time in the past by the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, but he annexed it in March 2024 a Russian company with unknown owners. Deripaska had already been sanctioned by the EU in April 2022 in connection with Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. At the time, this led to Rasperia being virtually disempowered as a Strabag shareholder in the construction company for sanction reasons.
In the lawsuit, Rasperia requested that the Russian court determine Raiffeisenbank Russia’s ownership rights to the Strabag shares “in the event of a victory and successful enforcement of a judgment,” an RBI spokesman also confirmed to the APA on Tuesday. “It goes without saying that the ruling of a Russian civil court would not remove the sanctions exposure of Strabag shares held by Rasperia,” he explained. It should also be noted that Raiffeisenbank Russia is part of the RBI Group and is not controlled by Strabag shareholder Raiffeisen-Holding Niederösterreich-Wien, emphasized the RBI spokesman.
According to Vedomosti, Rasperia has justified its claims against the Russian Raiffeisenbank by saying that this RBI subsidiary in Russia is the assets of a “Raiffeisen group” that is “maliciously hidden from Russian debtors behind a corporate structure.” Rasperia also includes the Raiffeisen-Holding Niederösterreich-Wien, which is also the defendant in Kaliningrad, and which, unlike Raiffeisenbank Russia, actually holds shares in Strabag, belongs to this “group”. Raiffeisen-Holding Niederösterreich is formally the owner of Raiffeisenlandesbank Niederösterreich-Wien, which in turn holds 25 percent of Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI). The latter is the parent company of Raiffeisenbank Russia.
Deripaska’s former company is trying to pass on its problems, which arose from a failed sale of its Strabag shares, to the Russian Raiffeisenbank, Vedomosti quoted the bank’s lawyer, Andrei Timchuk, as saying last week. The commercial lawyer recently requested a public hearing on the matter, which is expected to be decided on Wednesday. The defendant Strabag itself also became active at the beginning of the week: on Monday, according to the Russian court register, the construction company submitted written comments on the Rasperia lawsuit. The group does not want to reveal details about its positioning in the process. “We will not comment further on the ongoing proceedings,” said a Strabag spokeswoman for the APA on Tuesday.
Business lawyers interviewed by the Russian newspaper saw different prospects of success for the lawsuit. In connection with current Russian practice, Rasperia is given, among other things, “reasonably good chances” of suing for damages from Raiffeisenbank Russia, which is not involved in Strabag. Examples were mentioned of Russian subsidiary banks having to pay for the debts of their international parent companies. With regard to the required forced takeover of Rasperia’s Strabag shares by the RBI subsidiary, a business lawyer saw a “more difficult situation”. Such an option is only possible in Russian civil law in exceptional cases. At the same time, another expert did not want to rule out this scenario. The fact that such a Russian court decision on the forced transfer of Strabag shares would not be implemented in Austria was irrelevant to the court in Russia, he explained.
