Reprinted from Caribbean Net News
caribbeannetnews.com

US court won't reconsider Antigua bank ruling
02-08-2007

SAN FRANCISCO, USA (Reuters): A US appeals court said on Wednesday that it would not reconsider its dismissal of a lawsuit seeking the return of $2.5 million in assets the US government seized from an offshore bank in Antigua owned in part by former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko.

In September last year a US District Court judge in San Francisco sentenced Lazarenko to nine years in prison on extortion and money laundering charges, fined him $10 million and ordered him to forfeit $26 million plus interest from his bank accounts linked to the case.

The liquidators of the Antigua bank partially owned by Lazarenko and an associate appealed to the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, saying they owned $2.5 million in funds and bonds seized from the bank by the US government.

"The full court has been advised of Liquidators' petition for rehearing en banc and no judge of the court has requested a vote on it," Richard Tallman wrote for a three-judge panel that included former US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

"The petitions are denied, and no further petitions for rehearing may be filed."

The three-judge panel ruled in November that the liquidators lacked standing to bring their court challenge pending the conclusion of other legal proceedings in the Lazarenko case.

Lazarenko, who grew rich during the chaotic post-Soviet 1990s in Ukraine, is under house detention in San Francisco pending slow-moving appeals in his case.