Established in 2006, the factoring company Eurokommerts quickly became the market leader: by mid-2008, it had provided more than 110 billion rubles to more than 24,000 companies, mainly through loans and public credits. The company's bankruptcy was one of the most high-profile in Russia: according to its reporting for the first quarter of 2009, its debts to approximately 3,000 creditors exceeded 38 billion rubles.

One of the loans (for financing Eurokommerts through securitization of the factoring portfolio) was placed in the form of CLN through the SPV company Russian Factoring NO.l SA (RF1). In February, it applied to the Moscow Arbitration Court with a demand to include the debt of 7.09 billion rubles in the register of claims of Eurokommerts creditors.

She was represented in court by Alevtina Guzanova, the court's website says. She is an employee of VTB Dolgovaya Tsentr, sources at VTB say.

The RF1 notes issued were bought by Deutsche Bank and VTB, says a source involved in the securitization of this portfolio. A VTB representative confirms the bank's participation in this deal. According to him, the current debt on the notes to VTB is 1.885 billion rubles.

Deutsche Bank declined to comment. Its participation in the deal is confirmed by a source in the bank and several people close to VTB management. In late 2008 – early 2009, when Eurokommerts’ problems became known, Deutsche Bank sold the notes to the Tudor Capital fund, three participants in the deal say. It was not possible to obtain comments from Tudor Capital and Eurokommerts.

Until the end of autumn 2008, the notes were serviced normally due to incoming factoring payments, recalls the former president of Eurokommerts, Grigory Karpovsky. According to him, in autumn 2008, Eurokommerts paid out $700 million to various creditors, including RF1 investors.

VTB became concerned about the return of the money in February-March 2009, says a source close to the bank, in April the credit committee recognized the debt as problematic. According to sources close to the management of the state bank, there were two main reasons for this: the lack of documents allowing claims to be presented to clients and debtors, as well as "low portfolio quality due to a large number of transactions with signs of fraud, as well as transactions carried out in violation of control and risk management procedures." Karpovsky says that before his departure from Eurokommerts, everything was done correctly.

In order to include RF1 in the debtor's register of claims, it was necessary to initiate legal proceedings. Currently, work with RF1's problem debt is being carried out by VTB Dolgovoy Tsentr, sources close to VTB management say.

In May, the court found RF1's claims to be unfounded: the documents submitted were not signed by the debtor, and RF1 did not comply with the prescribed procedure for filing claims and demands for the repurchase of the debt.

RF1 filed an appeal to the Ninth Arbitration Court of Appeal, the court's website says, but the court rejected it in July. VTB is preparing to file a cassation appeal, its representative says.

VTB wants to collect debt from Eurokommerts