Court of Appeal confirms Bakhmatiuk's obligation to pay UAH 1.2 billion of VAB Bank's debt to NBU

On October 28, 2025, the Kyiv Court of Appeal considered the appeal of the former owner of PJSC VAB Bank Oleh Bakhmatiuk and left unchanged the decision of the court of first instance to recover UAH 1.221 billion from him in favor of the National Bank to repay the bank's debt under a stabilization loan.

This is stated in the NBU's message, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

In 2014, PJSC VAB Bank concluded a stabilization loan agreement with the National Bank for the amount of UAH 1.2 billion.

Oleh Bakhmatiuk guaranteed the return of the loan funds by the bank and concluded a surety agreement with the National Bank.

Therefore, he assumed personal obligations to repay the financial institution's debt to the National Bank.

Since both the bank and its guarantor failed to fulfill their obligations, the National Bank filed a lawsuit in 2015 to collect the debt from it.

On January 30, 2025, the Pecherskyi District Court of Kyiv satisfied the National Bank's claim against Oleh Bakhmatiuk to collect UAH 1.221 billion from him in favor of the National Bank.

Currently, the Pecherskyi District Court of Kyiv is considering five more cases on the National Bank's claims against Oleh Bakhmatiuk for debts of PJSC VAB Bank and PJSC CB Financial Initiative.

The total amount of debt that the National Bank is collecting through legal proceedings from Oleh Bakhmatiuk is about UAH 7.9 billion.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, on January 22, 2025, the Supreme Court confirmed the legality of previous court decisions to collect UAH 1.8 billion of debt from the former owner of the bank Financial Initiative.

The NBU Board classified PJSC VAB Bank as insolvent on November 20, 2014, and on March 19, 2015, it adopted a decision to revoke the banking license and liquidate this bank.