The court sided with the Central Bank in the case of former Europlan top managers

The Moscow Arbitration Court found that Alexander Mikhailov, the former CEO of the Europlan leasing company, his wife Anna Mikhailova and Dmitry Dolgikh, the former Europlan investment director, were engaged in securities market manipulation. The decision is published on the court's website.

Thus, the court sided with the Central Bank, not satisfying any of the claims of the Mikhailovs and Dolgikh, who wanted to challenge the results of last year's audit and the instructions of the Central Bank related to the manipulation of the Europlan bond market.

"To terminate the proceedings in the case regarding the requirements for invalidation of the Inspection Act (...) dated May 24, 2024. To refuse to satisfy the rest of the stated claims in full," the decision of the Arbitration Court says.

The audit of Europlan's top managers was initiated at the end of 2023. During it, the Bank of Russia established that the Mikhailovs and Dmitry Dolgikh were in cahoots. So, from April 22 to May 6, 2022, before making transactions with the company's debt securities, Mikhailov and Dolgikh first contacted each other by phone, and then simultaneously submitted counter requests with similar parameters. The share of transactions between accomplices mostly exceeded 90% of the total trading volume of these securities.

The Central Bank emphasized that these actions "entailed significant deviations in demand, supply, price and trading volume from the level that would have been formed without such operations." The total damage, according to the regulator, exceeded 31 million rubles. The central bank considered the actions of the participants in the transaction illegal and sent the verification materials to law enforcement agencies.

At the same time, the decision of the Arbitration Court revealed the details of the audit. In particular, it states that the Investigative Committee has opened two criminal cases against Mikhailov and Dolgikh under articles on abuse of authority (Part 2 of Article 201 of the Criminal Code) and market manipulation during bond trading (part 2 of Article 185.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). They are currently combined into one production facility.

The maximum penalty provided for under the article "Abuse of authority" is 10 years in prison.