A commercial court in Kiev has closed a case that sought to nullify a 2009 mortgage agreement involving the Ukraina shopping mall that was part of a facility agreement between a Quinn Group company and Anglo Irish Bank (now Irish Bank Resolution Corporation).

Laryssa Yanez Puga, the mall’s former manager, had launched legal proceedings to invalidate the mortgage agreement in April 2011 when IBRC had taken control of nearly 93 per cent of the mall, which was valued at $75 million.

The court decision follows a Kiev appellate court ruling on June 14th that recognised a chain of debt transfers worth $45 million over the Ukraina mall, formerly owned by the Quinn family, as “null and void.”

The ruling had the effect of upholding an earlier Belfast court ruling that said the debt over the mall was illegally transferred from Demesne Investments Ltd, of which the bankrupt Sean Quinn snr was director, to Lyndhurst Development Trading Ltd in the British Virgin Islands.

Local company
A previous Ukrainian court ruling had allowed rights to the debt to be transferred from Lyndhurst to Ukrainian brokerage Elegant Invest via Zenit, another obscure local company, despite Northern Ireland court rulings.

Elegant Invest and Nelya Serhiyeva unsuccessfully tried entering the most recent lawsuit as a third party but their motions were denied.

The current chairman of the management board of the centre, Rostyslav Levinzon, said yesterday’s ruling “effectively thwarted the attempt by the fake lender Elegant Invest, aided by the ousted director (Yanez Puga) from receiving an illegal penalty on the main asset of the department store – the building.”