Prague Municipal Court declares Sberbank CZ bankrupt

The Prague Municipal Court declared Sberbank CZ, a bank with links to Russia, bankrupt on Friday. The court ordered that a review hearing on registered claims be held on October 6, which will be followed by a creditor meeting on the same day, according to information in the Insolvency Register. When a bank is declared bankrupt, the debtor's assets are sold off and the proceeds are distributed among its creditors. At the end of June, the bank had tens of thousands of creditors, to whom it recorded obligations of CZK 61.762 billion.

The Czech National Bank legally revoked Sberbank CZ's banking license at the beginning of May, and the Prague Municipal Court then sent the bank into liquidation, due to the outflow of deposits from Sberbank CZ after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The application for insolvency was filed by the bank itself and the court launched the insolvency proceedings against Sberbank CZ in late July.

According to the Financial Analytical Office, Sberbank CZ is formally owned by the largest Russian bank Sberbank, which is on the EU's sanctions list, but Sberbank does not control the Czech bank's affairs. The assets of the Czech bank are therefore not subject to anti-Russian sanctions.