Sergei Bakeshin analysed for DP the specifics of disputes between UniCredit Bank and the management company of Pulkovo Airport

The 9th Commercial Court of Appeal has received UniCredit Bank’s appeal against the decision of the Moscow Commercial Court, which in September recovered RUB 62.5 m in unjust enrichment and RUB 12.5 m in interest from the financial institution in favour of the St. Petersburg-based Northern Capital Gateway LLC (NCG, management company of Pulkovo Airport).

The proceedings resulted from the disputes between the bank and the airport operator in the Commercial Centre of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (CC RUIE, arbitration court). The reason for the disputes is a disagreement over the amount of payment under a financial agreement on hedging interest rate risks.

In December 2022, the NCG in arbitration court demanded RUB 251.6 m in unjust enrichment, RUB 65.8 m in interest and RUB 2.6 m in fees for litigation from UniCredit Bank.

In August 2023, the arbitration court partially satisfied the St. Petersburg company’s claim, recognising its right to demand the return of RUB 125 m of unjust enrichment. At the same time, the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs found that the bank was entitled to retain half of this amount. Therefore, it recovered from UniCredit Bank only RUB 62.5 m, RUB 4.8 m in interest for the use of other people’s money and RUB 1.3 m in fees for litigation.

However, the airport management company did not agree with the arbitration court’s position, initiating the dispute in the Moscow Commercial Court. In February of this year, the St. Petersburg company succeeded in cancelling part of the arbitration court’s decision concerning the halving of the unjust enrichment received by UniCredit Bank. This judgement was upheld by higher courts and allowed NCG to sue UniCredit Bank in May to recover RUB 62.5 m in unjust enrichment and RUB 12.5 m in interest.

In bank-customer relations, the strong party is usually the bank, and it is the bank that most often sets the terms of jurisdiction, said Sergei Bakeshin, Counsel and Head of Dispute Resolution and Insolvency Practice at Maxima Legal.

‘In this case, the parties entered into a contract with complex financial terms and the parties probably felt that the CC RUIE would be better able to understand the intricacies of their relationship than the state arbitration court,’ the expert explained to the Delovoy Petersburg newspaper.

Sergei stressed that applications for cancellation of arbitration court decisions are often filed, but commercial courts in most cases refuse to satisfy them, so disputes like the NCG & UniCredit Bank case do not arise very often.

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