The judge panel of the Pivnichny (Northern) Economic Court of Appeals referred the PrivatBank's appeals against the decision of the Economic Court of the city of Kyiv to recognize as terminated all obligations of Nikopol Ferroalloy Plant JSC (NFP, Dnipropetrovsk region) to the bank to another judge panel, the bank's press service told Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday.

"The NFP declared the challenge to the panel, justifying it by the fact that the case was distributed according to the wrong specialization. The challenge was recognized as unfounded, and the case was transferred for distribution to another panel to make the final decision on the challenge," the bank said.

There is one more, already the third, pending challenge of NFP in the case.

The press service added that the date of the next hearing will be determined by a separate decision.

As reported, on January 22, 2021, the economic court recognized all obligations of the NFP as terminated.

According to the court's ruling, promulgated in the unified public Register of court rulings, this is a revolving credit line in the amount of $14 million, which the bank issued to NFP on February 2, 2009 with a loan repayment period until February 1, 2010 and which is mentioned in the bank's claim in the United States against its ex-owners.

PrivatBank filed a lawsuit with the Delaware Court of Chancery, in which it points to the violation of the NFP of its contractual obligations under the loan agreement, including the use of credit funds for purposes that contradict the conditions of issuance, that is, not to finance the current activities of the enterprise.

In addition, in the claim in the United States, according to the text of the court ruling, it is argued that NFP was involved in money laundering and illegal redirection of loans, which, in particular, provided for the repayment of debt under a loan agreement at the expense of funds under other loan agreements.

NFP, in turn, said that since any obligations between it and PrivatBank, stipulated by the loan agreement, were terminated by execution, the bank has no grounds for not recognizing the plaintiff's right to terminate the obligation.

PrivatBank said that its appeal with the U.S. court did not lead to non-recognition, violation or challenge of the rights of NFP and, accordingly, the latter had no prerequisites and grounds for filing a statement of claim for recognizing obligations under the loan agreement terminated. However, the economic court of Kyiv took the side the plaintiff.