Ukraine faces $1 billion claim for nationalizing Sense Bank

ABH Holdings, whose minority shareholders include Russian businessmen Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven, filed a $1 billion claim with the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) against Ukraine for nationalizing Sense Bank (formerly Alfa-Bank Ukraine), according to the company’s website.

The legal basis for the claim is an agreement between the Belgium-Luxembourg Economic Union and the Ukrainian government on mutual promotion and protection of investments.

The press release says that the lawsuit “outlines Ukraine’s escalating series of arbitrary, disproportionate, unreasonable, and discriminatory steps that led to the expropriation of the Bank by forced nationalization.”

In the summer of 2023, the board of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) decided to withdraw Sense Bank from the market and asked the government to nationalize the bank. Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers then nationalized Sense Bank.