The office of the Moscow Prosecutor has granted a complaint by Andrei Borodin’s attorney Mikhail Dolomanov. The complaint appealed a decision by the Main Department of Russia’s Interior Ministry for the city of Moscow to refuse to commence criminal proceedings to investigate the failure by the budget to receive proceeds from the sale of OJSC Bank of Moscow and OJSC Capital City Insurance Group shares once owned by the Government of Moscow.

The Prosecutor’s Office has instructed the police to continue investigating this fact. An investigation commenced by the police following a Borodin statement has been ongoing for over six months. However, so far there is no documentary evidence that the 103 billion rubles paid back in February for the shares previously owned by the Government of Moscow have in fact been passed  on to the city’s budget. In the meantime, the said 103 billion rubles would cover approximately half of the 2011 deficit in the Moscow budget.

The more than questionable circumstances of the departure of OJSC Bank of Moscow and OJSC Capital City Insurance Group shares from the ownership of the city of Moscow should have caught the attention of law-enforcement agencies. The valuation of the privatized block of shares in the Bank of Moscow, calculated based on stock exchange quotations, exceeds the amount paid for the shares by VTB at least by 10 billion rubles.

«It was exactly after an April statement by Mr. Borodin to the effect that the budget had not received funds from the privatization of the Bank of Moscow shares that a frenzied persecution campaign against him began. The campaign included his removal from the post of Bank President, arrest in absentia, attachment of his personal assets, trumped-up charges, and many other things. Every time Borodin raises the matter of non-receipt, by the budget, of privatization proceeds, the response is increasingly ridiculous insinuations against him,” noted Mikhail Dolomanov.

It is important that, as it conducts its investigation, the police establish who specifically and with what purpose launched the illegal scheme of privatizing the Bank of Moscow shares and determine the specific amount of damage inflicted on the budget.

Possibly, the police search for answers to these questions will result in those funds finally reaching the Moscow budget, something that Andrei Borodin has consistently called for.