MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Russian court ordered the seizure of funds in JPMorgan Chase’s bank accounts in Russia, according to court documents released on Wednesday, as part of a lawsuit by state-owned bank VTB seeking to recover funds blocked abroad.
Last week, JP Morgan Chase sued VTB in New York to stop its efforts to recover $439.5 million from an escrow account after Russia sent its army to Ukraine in 2022 and VTB was hit with sanctions.
JPMorgan Chase declined to comment on the interim measures imposed by the Russian court. VTB had no immediate comment Wednesday. He previously declined to comment on his legal disputes with JPMorgan Chase.
The decision of the Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region is dated April 22.
The court said it had ordered the seizure of all funds in JP Morgan’s bank accounts in Russia, including correspondent accounts and those opened in the name of a subsidiary. The court said it did not seize securities and property owned by the JP Morgan funds or the jpmorgan.ru domain.
In a complaint filed in Manhattan federal court earlier this month, JPMorgan called VTB’s attempt to collect the money in Russia a “blatant violation” of its agreement that disputes would be resolved in New York.
The largest U.S. bank said U.S. law prohibits it from releasing the $439.5 million, and that VTB, Russia’s second-largest bank, will try to seize its overseas assets if it wins the lawsuit Russian.
VTB’s prospects there are good, with Russian courts granting at least six other Russian banks relief against U.S. and European banks that were required to comply with sanctions laws.
(Reporting by Elena Fabrichnaya and Alexander Marrow; editing by Barbara Lewis)
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