After Credit Suisse, billionaire Bidzina Ivanichvili is now targeting Julius Bär. Accusing the establishment of “political blackmail”, the leader of the Georgian Dream party in power in Georgia intends to take legal action against the wealth manager.
His lawyers accuse him in particular of a lack of information as well as delays in carrying out money transfers. A large part of the assets recovered by Mr. Ivanishvili after court decisions against Credit Suisse were transferred to Julius Bär, according to a press release from the Georgian law firm Metric released at the beginning of the week.
According to the latter, relations between the Zurich bank and the billionaire have deteriorated in recent months.
Mr. Ivanchvili’s lawyers accuse Julius Bär of having withheld information concerning the accounts of the billionaire and short-lived Georgian prime minister between 2011 and 2012. They also accuse the bank of having threatened to terminate the business relationship maintained with the latter on the grounds of his status as a politically exposed person (PEP).
Contacted on Thursday by the AWP press agency, Julius Bär did not wish to comment on the matter. “In principle, we do not comment on the supposed or real affairs of our customers,” said a spokeswoman, after the online portal “Tippinpoint” reported the threat of legal action.
Politically Exposed Customer Status
According to Metric, the bank failed to take action after various hedge funds failed to meet deadlines to repay funds. The Georgian billionaire now suspects the wealth manager of acting “in a coordinated manner” with hedge funds to his detriment.
In December 2024, the bank then allegedly threatened to close Ivanishvili’s accounts due to his status as a politically exposed person. Julius Baer is also said to have interpreted US sanctions incorrectly and to his own advantage, by declaring that the billionaire and his family would be subject to them.
-For the record, Mr. Ivanishvili crossed swords for ten years before various courts around the world against Credit Suisse. The billionaire, who made his fortune in Russia and neighboring countries in the metallurgical industry after the collapse of the Soviet Union, was a client of an advisor to the former number two Swiss bank in Geneva, who had embezzled funds for which he was responsible.
While the former advisor, who was sentenced in 2018 to five years of imprisonment, committed suicide in 2020, the bank with two veils, now a UBS entity, was forced into 2023 by the courts of Bermuda to pay $600 million to Mr. Ivanishvili. A Singapore court, for its part, awarded the billionaire a payment of $740 million.
Civil proceedings under consideration in Switzerland should allow Mr. Ivanishvili to recover funds that were not included in the trials in Singapore and Bermuda, according to Metric.
Having sold all of his assets in Russia in 2011, Mr. Ivanishvili, whose fortune Forbes magazine estimated in 2012 at $6.4 billion, launched into politics in Georgia by creating the coalition of Georgian parties. Georgian dream. The latter declared himself the winner of the legislative elections of October 2024, a controversial vote.
Although Mr. Ivanishvili does not officially hold any position within the Georgian state, he has been considered the real strongman of the government for years. Having established “informal governance”, he chose ministers and gave a pro-Russian orientation to the country, taking hostile measures against the pro-European opposition and refusing to sanction Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
This article was automatically published. Sources: ats/awp
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