Felix Sater Says Kazakh Bank's Suit Is ‘Desperate Retaliation’
Felix Sater Says Kazakh Bank's Suit Is 'Desperate Retaliation'
(Bloomberg) -- A day after former Donald Trump associate Felix Sater was sued by Kazkah lender BTA Bank JSC for allegedly participating in a massive money laundering scheme, his lawyer shot back by claiming the case is "cheap and desperate retaliation" for a $10 million arbitration demand.
Sater started the arbitration in October, after BTA scrapped a deal with his asset-recovery firm, Litco LLC, to identify evidence and witnesses who could aid the bank’s effort to recover hundreds of millions of dollars. BTA had paid Litco $2.5 million for its help in the 2015 case, which accuses a wealthy Kazakh family of laundering $440 million in the U.S and Europe.
BTA, whose suit against the Kazakh family is ongoing, says it canceled the Litco deal because the bank didn’t know it was owned by Sater. Sater was already a key witness because he arranged some of the real-estate deals the Kazakh family allegedly used to launder the money. The bank says Sater deceived it and has denied wrongdoing.
BTA on Monday escalated its dispute by claiming in a lawsuit that Sater participated in the alleged scheme with the Kazakh family, Ilyas Khrapunov and his father, Viktor, the former mayor of Almaty, Kazakhstan. The suit fails to mention the arbitration or BTA’s deal with Litco, Sater’s attorney Robert Wolf said Tuesday.
The suit is "based on manufactured allegations," Wolf said in an email that refers to the arbitration as a lawsuit. "Their concealment from the court of that lawsuit against them and their concealment of the prior agreement with Litco will result in a prompt dismissal of this case."
"Arbitration proceedings under the rules of the American Arbitration Association are confidential, and so I cannot comment on whatever they may be claiming," BTA’s lawyer, Matthew L. Schwartz, said in an email. "If Litco would like to waive arbitration and instead litigate its claims in open court, in a public forum, my clients would welcome that."
To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Larson in New York at elarson4@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net
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