The English High Court has today issued a worldwide freezing order against Russia’s largest fruit multi-national, JFC Group Co. Ltd (“JFC”) of St Petersburg (owned by Mr Vladimir Kekhman). In August 2011 the High Court in London awarded reefer ship owner STAR Reefers USD16.5m, plus legal costs and interest, against charterparty guarantor JFC, following the unlawful early redelivery of three ships and wrongful termination of the charters by JFC’s chartering arm Kalistad Ltd of Cyprus. JFC have not appealed the judgement and it is now final. JFC have failed to pay the judgement sum. On 6 September 2011, the judgment debt against JFC was registered with the UK Government’s Registry Trust, which is publically searchable by banks, rating agencies, lenders and creditors.
As a result of JFC’s failure to pay the judgement debt and breach of other court orders, on 10 November 2011 the High Court ordered JFC to disclose details of all of their worldwide assets with a value exceeding USD 25,000 and any transactions between JFC and its associated companies. Because of JFC’s continuing failure to comply with court orders and due to evidence that assets may have be transferred between offshore companies to frustrate creditors, on 16 December 2011 His Honour Judge Mackie QC issued a worldwide freezing order in the sum of USD 21m against JFC’s assets.
JFC’s banks including Royal Bank of Scotland, Citibank, Nordea, VTB (Deutschland), Gazprombank, Raiffeisen, Sberbank, UniCredit, Amsterdam Trade Bank, Banque Societe Generale, Commerzbank, and Bank of Moscow have been notified of the Court Order.
Source: www.freshplaza.com