This story initially appeared in East-West Digital News, an international news resource covering the Russian innovation scene.
Last week several court decisions brought new developments to the Baring Vostok case, which started one year ago with the arrest of the firm’s executive team.
On Monday, Feb. 10, a Moscow court ruled to keep US citizen Michael Calvey and French Philippe Delpal under house arrest until May 13. The two expats had been placed in pre-trial detention when arrested in mid-February 2019 and moved to house arrest a few months later.
The court also decided to lift a freeze on 2.5 billion rubles ($39 million) worth of shares in Vostochny Bank that were frozen as part of the case, a Baring Vostok representative said, as reported by Reuters.
Following a separate court decision two days later (Feb. 13), three other Baring Vostok executives – Russian citizens Vagan Abgaryan, Maxim Vladimirov and Ivan Zyuzin – were moved from pre-trial detention to house arrest. (Alexey Kordichev and Alexander Tsakunov were other executives arrested in early 2019 and placed under house arrest in the course of the year.)
Baring Vostok Capital Partners is one of the most established Russian private equity firms, which invested in some of Russia’s best tech companies. The arrest of the firm’s executives under controversial charges shocked the business community in Russia and beyond. Calvey and his colleagues have always maintained their innocence.
Found guilty but soon released?
The involvement of Artem Avetisyan, the plaintiff in case, in an array of government-related organizations, raised speculations about the level of knowledge and involvement of the Russian government and president in the case.
According to online publication TheBell, which cites unnamed sources close to high ranking officials, the latest transfers from detention to house arrest are a clear sign that the affair will soon come to its end.
In the trial which is expected to take place in May 2020, the defendants should be found guilty but receive light or suspended sentences, say TheBell’s sources. These sentences being covered by the time they already spent in prison or under house arrest, the Baring Vostok executives should be released just after the trial.
The Russian justice system is known for its next-to-zero rate of acquittals. Only 0.25% of all cases referred to court in 2018 ended with not-guilty verdicts.