SOFIA (Bulgaria), November 20 (SeeNews) – The Sofia City Court said on Thursday it has decided to stay the insolvency proceedings against Corporate Commercial Bank (Corpbank) after receiving a complaint from its majority shareholder against the central bank's decision to revoke the lender's licence.
The proceedings will be stayed until the legal dispute is settled, the court said in a statement on its website.
On November 6, the central bank delicensed Corpbank after placing the lender under conservatorship in late June. The central bank said at the time it would seek the bank's insolvency after it was found to have a negative own capital of 3.75 billion levs ($2.4 billion/1.9 billion euro) as of September 3.
Bromak, owned by Bulgarian businessman Tsvetan Vasilev, holds 50.66% of the voting rights of Corpbank, and the Omani fund, through its subsidiary Bulgarian Acquisition Company II, Luxembourg, holds 30.354% of the voting rights, according to the bank’s latest financial report. A unit of Russia's VTB owned 9.07% of the bank at end-June.
Earlier this week the Sofia City Court scheduled for November 24 the case for the lender's insolvency. The court said at the time that representatives of Corpbank, the central bank, Sofia city prosecutor's office, and the Bulgarian Deposit Insurance Fund will attend the behind closed doors hearing.
The repayment of guaranteed deposits of up to 100,000 euro held by Corpbank will start from December 4.
(1 euro = 1.95583 Bulgarian levs)