Russians fail to show at RICO hearing
Last spring I reported on a case filed in Russia by the Russian Federation against the Bank of New York Mellon (BONY) in which Russia sought to apply the United States’ RICO statute in the Russian court. The Wall Street Journal Law Blog reported this morning that the Russian Federal Customs Service failed to send a representative to appear in a Moscow court for the resumption of pretrial hearings.
As background: The Russian Federal Customs Service is suing BONY over an illegal wire transfer scheme from the 1990s, when two Russian émigrés — one of whom worked for BONY — moved $7.5 billion to American accounts from Russia via unlicensed wire transfers. They later pleaded guilty to various offenses under U.S. law. BONY, under a non-prosecution agreement with the DOJ, acknowledged failure to properly monitor wire transfer activity and paid a fine of $14 million. Now the Russians claim they, too, should be awarded a fine, to the tune of $22.5 billion, and are basing their argument on the RICO statute.
Russian Judge Lyodmila Pulova said the customs service had faxed her a petition requesting a delay until Oct. 15, and explaining only that the service’s lawyers were busy with other matters. Judge Pulova was unimpressed. She overruled the request and agreed to hear testimony from two of the bank’s U.S. experts ‒ including former attorney general Richard Thornburgh. When the witnesses finished, Pulova put off continuation of the hearing until Nov. 13.
BONY is using Gregory Joseph as a RICO expert. Mr. Joseph reportedly presented an 80-slide PowerPoint presentation to the court, explaining why he believes that the case would require the court to interpret U.S. criminal laws.
