A St. Petersburg court ordered the freezing of funds owned by US banking giant JPMorgan Chase in Russia on Wednesday. The ruling was made in favor of the country’s second-largest lender VTB, which ha filed a lawsuit seeking to recover $439.5 million that is blocked abroad under US-led sanctions.
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VTB sued JPMorgan and its subsidiaries in the Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region on April 17, court filings showed on Monday. The order targeted funds in JPMorgan’s Russian accounts and “movable and immovable property,” including the bank’s stake in a Russian subsidiary.
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The dispute centers on $439.5 million in funds that VTB held in a JPMorgan account in the US, which were blocked by Washington as part of Ukraine-related sanctions in 2022.
The court ordered the seizure of all funds in JPMorgan bank accounts in Russia, including correspondent accounts and those opened in the name of a subsidiary.