Hogan Lovells secures PrivatBank victory as former owners' appeal against US $3 billion judgment is defeated

Press releases | 22 May 2026

London, 22 May 2026 - Hogan Lovells has secured a further significant victory for PrivatBank, Ukraine’s largest bank, after the bank successfully defeated an attempt by its former owners, Igor Kolomoisky and Gennadiy Bogolyubov, to overturn the judgment given against them in July 2025. As a result, the order that Mr Kolomoisky and Mr Bogolyubov pay PrivatBank more than US$3 billion in damages, interest and costs remains in full force and effect.

The Court of Appeal has agreed with the High Court’s original decision that Messrs Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov perpetrated a huge fraud against the Bank and must compensate it for the losses they caused. In particular, the Court of Appeal rejected the former owners’ contention that they had repaid the misappropriated sums using the proceeds of further frauds against the Bank.

In 2017 the Bank obtained a Worldwide Freezing Order over the defendants’ assets. The Bank will now seek to enforce the judgment against those assets to obtain compensation for the Bank and, by extension, its shareholder, the Ukrainian Government.

The Chairman of the Supervisory Board of PrivatBank, Mr. Nils Melngailis, said: “Today is a landmark day in PrivatBank’s fight for justice on behalf of the state of Ukraine and its people. We are determined to recover the substantial funds that were stolen so that it can be returned and used to benefit the people of Ukraine. We remain grateful for the steadfast support of our stakeholders and international partners, without whom this remarkable victory would not have been possible”.

Richard Lewis, partner at Hogan Lovells, said: “The Court of Appeal clearly had little difficulty in rejecting the Defendants’ arguments that, even though they perpetrated a massive fraud on the bank, they should be able to escape liability for that fraud by misappropriating further funds and using those funds to cover up their earlier fraud. We look forward to recovering the funds misappropriated from the bank via the enforcement process”.

The Hogan Lovells team advising PrivatBank was led by partners Richard Lewis, Rebecca Wales, Oli Humphrey and Jenna Ralfe, with support from a core team, including counsel Dan Armstrong, James Wise, and Will Robinson, Assistant General Counsel Dan Gritten, senior associates Alex Dowle, Claire Dumbill, Katherine Reed, John Morse and Nick Roper, associates Shaun Yeoh, Rufus Dobson, Lydia Alexander and Alissa Manuel, and locum lawyer Oleksiy Yatsenko.