The Moscow Arbitration Court has set the date for hearing Goldman Sachs’ legal suit on the collection of 3.178bln rubles from its debtors — BTA Bank and TuranAlem Finance — for March 29. According to the court materials, the Russian subsidiary of the U.S. investment giant filed the suit following its debtors’ failure to honor their bond obligations. The Russian subsidiary bought the bank’s bonds in 2005, and their maturity expired in 2009. TuranAlem Finance guaranteed the bonds. When the debtor and the guarantor failed to honor their obligations, Goldman Sachs petitioned the court to help retrieve the debt and the accrued interests.
The BTA Bank is a Kazakhstan-based entity and is the nation’s second largest bank by assets as of November 2009. The National Welfare Fund of Kazakhstan controls 75% of the bank. On the other hand, Goldman Sachs has been actively building its business in Russia since 2006, when it received its licenses from FSFM, the local regulator, to undertake brokerage activities, securities trading and other operations with companies’ stocks and state bonds in the country.
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