Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) – JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:) on Friday asked a U.S. federal court in Manhattan to dismiss a lawsuit against Russia’s VTB Bank over $439.5 million in accounts frozen after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying VTB bank had “forced” it to drop the case.
The largest U.S. bank sued VTB in April after the Russian state bank filed a lawsuit in Russia seeking to recover frozen funds.
JPMorgan said U.S. sanctions had prevented it from withdrawing the funds and that VTB had agreed to resolve the dispute in Manhattan rather than in Russia.
But JPMorgan said VTB later obtained an injunction from a Russian court requiring it to stop the Manhattan lawsuit.
JPMorgan said the request to halt trading was “anticlimactic” because it would face uncertain risks in Russia if it violated the injunction.
VTB, Russia’s second-largest bank, has also sought to dismiss JPMorgan’s lawsuit, but the two banks could not agree on appropriate wording for a joint dismissal order. U.S. District Judge Rona Schofield in Manhattan is scheduled to consider the banks’ proposal.
A U.S.-based lawyer for VTB did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and a lawyer for JPMorgan did not immediately respond to a separate request.
VTB was placed on the US Treasury Department’s sanctions list in February 2022 following the invasion of Ukraine.
On August 6, Judge Schofield fined VTB $500,000 for failing to comply with an order seeking a stay of enforcement of the Russia lawsuit.
In connection with this dispute, some of JPMorgan’s assets in Russia have been frozen.
JPMorgan said in its quarterly report on Aug. 2 that its claims and frozen assets in Russia exceed the assets it can hold in the country and that asset seizure remains a possibility.
The case is JPMorgan Chase Bank NA v. VTB Bank PJSC, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, Case No. 24-02924.
