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Russia’s central bank has filed a lawsuit in Moscow seeking damages from Brussels-based depository Euroclear for freezing its sovereign assets, and vowed to challenge European plans to immobilise the reserves.
The move opens the door for Russia to seize Euroclear’s €17bn of assets in the country, seek further damages from the company in other jurisdictions and file other lawsuits if the EU goes ahead with the plans.
The central bank said on Friday it would also “unconditionally challenge” efforts to immobilise its assets via international courts in both “friendly and hostile countries”. It said it would push other jurisdictions to seize Euroclear assets once the Russian court ruled on the case.
The suit is Russia’s first shot across Europe’s bows as Brussels moves to indefinitely immobilise the assets next week to fund a €90bn loan to Ukraine. Belgium, where most of the assets are held, has opposed the idea, fearing Russian retaliation.
As part of its proposal tabled last week, the European Commission has introduced safeguards to protect EU member states and financial institutions from lawsuits within the bloc and to make it more difficult for Russia to enforce any judgments in other jurisdictions.
Russia’s central bank said that Euroclear, which holds €185bn of the €210bn in Russian assets frozen by Europe, had “made it impossible to access funds and securities belonging to the Bank of Russia” through “illegal actions”.
It is seeking damages based on “the sum of the Bank of Russia’s blocked funds, the value of the blocked securities, and loss of expected gains”, the central bank added.
It added that it would pursue “all available legal and other mechanisms to defend its interests” if the European plans to use Russia’s assets move forward. Euroclear declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Kyiv’s western allies froze $300bn in Russia’s reserves shortly after President Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. They are currently immobilised every six months through a process that requires unanimous agreement from all 27 EU members, including opponents of the scheme such as Hungary.
But the European Commission proposed using emergency powers to immobilise €210bn indefinitely to fund the €90bn loan, hoping it will bolster Kyiv’s resistance to Russia’s invasion and help secure a role for the continent in US-led peace talks. EU countries on Thursday agreed to that proposal ahead of a debate among EU leaders next week on the loan.
The move is opposed by the US, which wants most of the assets to be poured into two US-led investment funds as part of draft peace plans that Donald Trump’s administration is currently negotiating between the US and Russia.
Belgium has demanded other member states share the risks of future Russian legal challenges. But France, whose commercial banks hold about €18bn of the Russian assets, has pushed back against the idea.
Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, said last month that the Kremlin had drawn up plans to respond to the EU scheme but did not offer further details. Moscow is also exploring seizing assets held by Euroclear and western investors in Russia, as well as nationalising western businesses in Russia outright.
Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesperson, told reporters earlier this week that a move to immobilise the Russian assets would “have very serious consequences for countries, legal entities and individuals”.
The EU economy commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said: “The assets are not seized and the principle of sovereign immunity is respected.”
He said the commission has proposed “additional protections for financial institutions holding these immobilised assets” as part of its €90bn loan proposal.
Additional reporting by Paola Tamma and Laura Dubois in Brussels
