The defendants in the case are named as the Russian state, the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, the Russian Central Bank and the Russian Wealth Fund.
Noble Capital’s filing states that in December 1916, the imperial Russian government sold sovereign bonds to investors in the U.S worth $25m, with interest at 5.5% per annum and a five-year maturity.
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The fund has since acquired those bonds, making its claim based on over 100 years of interest and adjusting for the price of gold.
In the March after the bonds were issued, after the February Revolution, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated and his government was replaced with a provisional government.
Following the October Revolution of 1917, in which the Bolsheviks seized power, all foreign debts were repudiated.
The U.S government eventually recognised the Soviet Union as the successor state to the provisional government in November 1933.
When the USSR collapsed in 1991, modern day Russia was recognised as the successor state which the lawsuit states made it responsible for “the sovereign debts of the Soviet Union, the Russian Provisional Government and the Russian Imperial Government, including the Russian Sovereign Bonds”.
It states that while Russia has repaid imperial debts to Britain and France, and “substantially all of the sovereign debts of the Soviet Union”, there has been no repayment to U.S nationals.
Noble Capital is therefore calling for Russian assets frozen in the west after the invasion of Ukraine to be used as payment of the $225.8bn which it says would be debt fulfilment rather than confiscation.
Lawyers for the defendants Marks & Sokolov said neither the USSR nor Russia ever acknowledged their liability for the old bonds and that it would file a motion to dismiss if the claim is not withdrawn by January 30.