MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Russian court has ordered the seizure of funds in JPMorgan Chase bank accounts in Russia totalling $155.8 million, court filings showed, as state-owned Russian bank VTB seeks damages over funds blocked abroad.
The seizure was imposed on funds in any currency on all JPMorgan bank accounts, except those held in so-called type C accounts which cannot be transferred out of Russia, the filings from the St Petersburg Arbitration Court showed.
The cases were lodged on Oct. 7, the filings showed. VTB is seeking damages from nine defendants related to JPMorgan, including its Russian subsidiary JPMorgan International.
JPMorgan and VTB did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
JPMorgan, the largest U.S. bank, has said previously that the value of claims against it and orders to freeze its assets is greater than its available assets in Russia.
It has not specified the amount of those assets and has said that U.S. sanctions prohibit it from releasing funds.
JPMorgan in August asked a U.S. judge in Manhattan to dismiss its lawsuit against VTB over a $439.5 million account frozen after Russia sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, saying VTB “coerced” it into requesting the dismissal.
(Reporting by Elena Fabrichnaya and Alexander Marrow; editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
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