Bidzina Ivanishvili's legal team accuses 'Credit Suisse' of blackmailing
By Liza Mchedlidze
Thursday, December 29, 2022
Bidzina Ivanishvili's legal advisers have released a statement regarding the ongoing dispute with 'Credit Suisse', where they say that the bank is 'blackmailing' Ivanishvili and for this reason, they have decided to publish details.
Ivanishvili's lawyers wrote that the financial disputes of the former Prime Minister of Georgia were complicated by the adoption of the European Parliament resolution, according to which the European Commission recommended the sanctioning of Bidzina Ivanishvili.
"On December 14, 2022, the European Parliament adopted a resolution recommending the sanctioning of Ivanishvili to the executive bodies of the European Union.
Based on this background, the bank made the last transfers to the client exactly after December 14. Why we highlighted this circumstance: We said that the trust on the island of Guernsey manages the largest part of Ivanishvili's Credit Suisse saved funds.
These funds are now in another Swiss bank but under the management of a Credit Suisse trust. Neither Credit Suisse as a bank nor its trust has and cannot have any financial interest in not following Ivanishvili's instructions with respect to the funds belonging to him.
Accordingly, we termed these actions of the Guernsey Trust as political blackmail, as it had been obstructing transfers since March initially under the pretext of "the geopolitical situation in Eastern Europe".
In this regard, there was a long correspondence between the lawyers for several months. Meanwhile, Credit Suisse received the first resolution of the European Parliament on June 9, 2022, which called on the Council of Europe to sanction Ivanishvili.
Credit Suisse saw a solution in this resolution, albeit with a delay, because already in July, when the European Council meeting was held and it did not reflect any sanctions against Ivanishvili, after that the Credit Suisse Trust stated that due to the resolution of the European Parliament, deprived It was possible to transfer funds to the beneficiary.
Thus, based on the price-loss (non-shared) resolution, the bank did not transfer the amount to the client and could not indicate the norm on the basis of which it did so," the statement reads.
