Kyrgyzstan’s Bakai Bank has announced victory in a Brussels court case against the non-governmental organization Open Dialogue Foundation (ODF), which had previously published materials calling for sanctions against the bank. The court said the allegations were not supported by sufficient evidence.
According to the bank, it filed the lawsuit to protect its business reputation after the Open Dialogue Foundation published materials in 2023 calling for sanctions against the financial institution to be considered.
The ODF publications alleged that the bank may have been involved in schemes to circumvent European Union anti-Russian sanctions. Bakai Bank denied these allegations and initiated legal proceedings in Brussels.
According to the bank’s statement and reporting on the ruling, a Brussels court held that ODF had made serious allegations without sufficient evidence.
As a result, the court ordered the organization to remove the relevant publications, publish the text of the court decision on the main page of its website, and reimburse legal costs. At the time of publication, the Open Dialogue Foundation had not publicly commented on the court’s decision. Bakai Bank stated that the court’s decision stands as confirmation of the allegations’ groundlessness.
“We welcome this decision, which confirms the lack of basis for the charges and protects the bank’s business reputation. We consistently comply with international law and adhere to the principles of transparency in our operations,” the bank’s representatives said.
Askat Alagozov, press secretary to the President of Kyrgyzstan, commented on the situation on social media. He noted that this is not the first time Kyrgyz banks have faced accusations of evading sanctions. Specifically, Keremet Bank has been sanctioned by the United States and the United Kingdom, while Capital Bank of Central Asia, also known as Kapital Bank, has been sanctioned by the United Kingdom.
According to Alagozov, such measures are accusatory in nature, and no public evidence of violations has been presented.
He also added that President Sadyr Japarov previously rejected such accusations and stated the country’s readiness to conduct an independent international audit of the banking sector. Moreover, Capital Bank of Central Asia, one of the banks targeted by sanctions, is state-owned.
Author: Rayana Amankulova is a Kyrgyz journalist who writes on socio-economic topics.
Original article: THE TIMES OF CENTRAL ASIA
Context
Bakai Bank’s Demands for Damages
Bakai Bank seeks financial compensation from ODF for alleged reputational and financial harm it claims to have suffered due to allegedly defamatory ODF publications. Bakai Bank demands the court in Brussels to declared Bakai Bank’s claims admissible and founded, and to order ODF to do the following:
- immediately remove the publications, under penalty of a fine of 10,000 euros per publication per day;
- send a copy of the forthcoming judgment to all authorities to which ODF has sent a copy of the disputed publications, within 5 days of the notification of the forthcoming judgment, under penalty of a fine of 10,000 euros per authority and per day;
- publish the entirety of the forthcoming judgment at the top of the first page of its website https://en.odfoundation.eu/ without comment, within 5 days of the judgment to come and for an uninterrupted period of 30 days, under penalty of a fine of 10,000 euros per day;
- pay to Bakai Bank as damages the sum of 50,000 euros as moral damages and 1,000,000 euros as material damages, plus compensatory interest at the legal rate, from September 20, 2024. ODF may pay the damages by transferring them to the account of the King Baudouin Foundation with the reference of the association “BE for Ukraine”; and
- pay all the costs of the proceedings, including procedural and scheduling fees.
