UK Supreme Court Denies Kolomoisky and Boholiubov Appeal in PrivatBank's $3 billion Fraud Case

The UK Supreme Court has refused Ihor Kolomoisky and Hennadiy Boholiubov permission to appeal the $3 billion-plus fraud judgment won by PrivatBank, bne IntelliNews reported on November 4. A panel of Lord Reed, Lady Rose and Lord Snowden decided on October 29 that the application "does not raise an arguable point of law of general public importance that the Supreme Court ought to hear at this time", according to the court's case record.

How the UK Supreme Court Ruled

The panel gave the same answer to Boholiubov's application. The same court turned the pair away in 2020, when they tried to stop the case being heard in England. "This means that the English court's July 2025 ruling ordering the former owners to pay PrivatBank more than $3 billion in damages, interest and legal costs can now be enforced in any jurisdiction," the bank said.

The decision ends the argument over liability nearly a decade after the state took over Ukraine's largest bank, but it does not bring any money closer on its own. The judgment could already be enforced: the High Court refused a stay last year and the pair missed the November 24, 2025 payment deadline. The November 2025 judgment set $1.76 billion in damages and $1.19 billion in pre-judgment interest, plus an interim GBP76.4mn ($100 million) towards costs, with further interest running at US prime plus two percentage points.

A worldwide freezing order has been in place since December 2017, when the assets were put at more than $2.5 billion across at least 33 jurisdictions, but no current inventory has been published. The one pot described in the court record is modest: accounts held for Boholiubov by his solicitors, on which the bank took a first charge in December 2025, ring-fencing about GBP30mn ($40 million) to fund the appeal. In a June 29 ruling the High Court said the bank's right to enforce against those funds arose when the appeal failed on May 22, and refused to let unpaid legal bills go first.

PrivatBank's Scale in Ukraine

PrivatBank is Ukraine's largest commercial bank, serving 18+ million customers through 1,000+ branches and 7,000+ ATMs, according to akta.pro company records. The same records put its share of total deposits at 37%. The bank was nationalised in 2016 with a $5.5 billion hole and took UAH155bn ($6 billion at the 2016 rate) in public money, Kyiv Post reported, so even full recovery would return about half. A bank spokesperson said last year that any compensation would benefit the government as sole shareholder.

Earlier Rulings in the Case

A London court upheld a ruling ordering Kolomoisky and Boholiubov to pay over $3 billion on May 22, 2026, rejecting their appeal, Kyiv Post reported; the court said repayments were linked to further fraud and the defendants destroyed evidence. The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague awarded PrivatBank $180.87 million for allegedly expropriated Crimea assets on October 6, 2026, with interest accruing from April 2014, TASS reported.

PrivatBank's Sale and IPO Plans

Kyiv has drawn up a sale of 7% of the bank to citizens for about UAH18bn ($394 million), and National Bank of Ukraine deputy governor Dmytro Oliynyk said in June that an IPO was possible next year. Neither plan, as reported, says whether new shareholders would share in anything recovered from the former owners. "Enforcement will be a lengthy and complex process," the bank warned last year.