Geneva Court started consideration of Bidzina Ivanishvili”s case. At the court session, former personal banker of Georgia’s ex-prime-minister said he started moving money between client accounts to hide losses around the time of the 2008 financial crisis.
As a result, Bidzina Ivanishvili lost almost 150 mln USD.
Former Credit Suisse Group AG banker Patrice Lescaudron admits, that apart from Bidzina Ivanishvili’s signature, he also defrauded Vitaliy Malkin’s signature. Lescaudron, who has spent the past two years in a Geneva jail, was managing about $1.6 billion for clients in Russia and Georgia, including former Georgia Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili. As is known, Lescaudron also worked in Moscow and apart from Bidzina Ivanishvili, two more Russian businesspersons have filed criminal complaints against him.
Many details of the case are unclear, however following has been revealed:
In 2006, Lescaudron started adding real estate stocks for his clients. For this purpose he opened associated accounts without informing his clients. When as a result of the financial crisis Austrian real-estate company Meinl European Land Ltd. stock lost more than half its value, the banker instead of admitting the loss, started filling the account with Bidzina Ivanishvili’s money. he transferred some 100 mln USD to the accounts of other clients. Ivanishvili’s lawyer states that Ivanishvili was not aware of these transfers.
