Investors are filing lawsuits en masse to unlock assets

In June, there was a surge in lawsuits against the Belgian depository Euroclear, according to the Moscow Arbitration Court (Izvestia studied them). Since the beginning of June, 14 investors have filed a lawsuit against the organization: one of the lawsuits is collective, it contains complaints from 12 people, and two more are individual. This is one of the most massive waves of lawsuits since the sanctions were imposed.

Many Russian investors who invested in foreign securities lost access to them in 2022. The assets were blocked after the imposition of sanctions against Russian banks and the National Settlement Depository (NSD). Through the court, they are demanding compensation for losses due to the freezing of their funds.

"The influx of plaintiffs has really been going on since the beginning of the year, after the Moscow Arbitration Court fully satisfied the claim of a private investor. Euroclear was obliged to pay him more than $9 million, the amount of lost assets and unpaid dividends," the legal service confirmed the trend. Razmorozka.com .

The court then concluded that Euroclear had no legal grounds for blocking the plaintiff's accounts, they clarified. However, the money has not yet been received by the investor. The Belgian depository is currently trying to appeal the decision, but it is unlikely to be able to do so in the Russian jurisdiction.

At the end of March 2025, Euroclear Bank held €195 billion worth of frozen Russian assets (about 18 trillion rubles) — they increased by €12 billion over the year (due to the transfer of income there — dividends and coupons). At the same time, Euroclear itself earns from them — by the end of the first quarter of 2025, it received €1.47 billion in interest income from investing blocked securities, of which €360 million went to the Belgian budget in the form of taxes.

Read more in the exclusive Izvestia article:

In an active lawsuit: investors are suing en masse due to the unblocking of their funds