Four senior managers at Gazprombank's Luxembourg branch reportedly exploited the market chaos following the 2022 sanctions against Russia, making over €9 million in personal profit. Dmitry Derkatch, Sergey Nekrasov, Sergey Belousov, and Pavel Bolshakov received personal loans from Gazprombank's Moscow office, totaling more than €17 million after conversion from roubles. They used these funds to purchase deeply discounted Gazprom foreign currency bonds in Europe, which had plummeted in value due to sanctions.
The scheme involved a decree by Russian President Vladimir Putin allowing these bonds to be replaced with new ones at full price in Russia. The executives bought the cheap bonds and then exchanged them for full-value equivalents in roubles. This process involved more than 50 transactions, with their combined potential profit estimated to exceed €9 million, according to calculations based on documents reviewed by the Financial Times. The trades raise serious questions about potential circumvention of EU sanctions and the use of insider information, as some purchases occurred before Gazprom publicly announced which bonds were eligible for exchange.
The report indicates that the bankers often coordinated their purchases, buying the same amount of the same bond on the same day, sometimes even before Gazprom announced the bonds were eligible for replacement. For instance, Derkatch bought a bond for approximately €65,000, less than half its nominal price of €150,000, which was later replaced, potentially yielding an €85,000 profit. The National Settlement Depository (NSD), a Russian entity under EU sanctions, was involved in settling these bond replacements, prompting concerns from EU officials that this could constitute sanctions circumvention. Critics note that the timing and coordination of these trades suggest prior knowledge.
Internal concerns were raised within Gazprombank about potential insider trading, though some bank officials defended the transactions. Following an internal inquiry, the transactions were halted by the end of 2022. Luxembourg's financial regulator, CSSF, investigated in March 2023, finding violations of internal rules regarding employee personal accounts and insufficient vetting of the high-risk directors, but it did not find other wrongdoing or impose fines. Gazprombank Luxembourg has denied any market abuse or unlawful conduct, while Derkatch stated the absence of findings from the regulator conclusively settled the matter as lawful.
