EAHCISS News (English)

From the 1st of December 2025 "Reestr Proton", the new Russian registrar of Ozon, will start accepting applications for the forced conversion of depositary shares of Ozon. Ozon recently underwent redomiciliation from Cyprus to Russia. Applications for forced conversion can be submitted until the 31st of March 2026.  It is likely that this may be the only chance for holders of depositary shares to convert their depositary shares of Ozon into ordinary shares. If one does not participate in the current procedure the ordinary shares underlying the depositary receipts may well be liquidated for a discount once the depositary bank BNY may be able to do so. Magenta Legal recently published a video in which they explain the process. EAHCISS may organise a webinar on this topic too to help investors navigate the fairly complex procedure of forced conversion. The video by Magenta Legal can be viewed via YouTube: https://youtu.be/Xir-ZeLMeOM

Yesterday was the first day of trading of Ozon on the Moscow stock exchange after the process of redomiciliation from Cyprus to the Russian Federation was completed.  The 11th of November 2025 was also the day that Reestr-Proton, the registrar for Ozon, published the procedure for the forced conversion of depositary shares into local ordinary shares. This information can be found here: https://reestr-proton.ru/for_shareholders   EAHCISS is contemplating hosting a webinar to explain the process of forced conversion of Ozon depositary shares.  It is well possible that shareholders that do not apply for forced conversion may not have the chance to obtain ordinary shares of Ozon afterwards and that BNY will liquidate the Ozon shares that underly the depositary shares if they see a possibility to do so. Unfortunately voluntary conversion of depositary shares of Ozon has, in practice, not been possible due to a global lock that was placed on the depositary shares by the DTC in ...

In this post we provide a sixth update on recent Russian court decisions.  Case 6: If you did not apply for 'Forced Conversion' in 2022 you can't ask a Russian court to force Raiffeisenbank to do so now  This case involves Ms Staroseltseva that bought depositary receipts of Polyus in August 2023. She was allowed to do so since Polyus was granted an extension of their depositary receipts program beyond April 2022 by the Russian government committee.  However, as the purchased the depositary receipts beyond the deadline for forced conversion in 2022, she could not participate in the forced conversion.  She therefore decided to start legal proceedings against BNY and Raiffeisenbank Russia in the Russian courts. She was trying to get a Russian court order that would force Raiffeisenbank Russia to take the underlying shares out of the depositary account for the Polyus depositary receipts program and to transfer these ordinary shares to her own account.  The Moscow ar...

Today was the last day of trading of Ozon American Depositary Shares (ADS) on the AIX (Astana International Exchange). Ozon IPJSC (formerly Ozon Holdings PLC) announced on the 25th of September that the Company is now registered in the special administrative district in Kaliningrad region, Oktyabrsky Island, Russia as Ozon International Public Joint-Stock Company. Trading in Ozon IPJSC shares is expected to resume by the end of 2025. The Moscow Exchange will notify investors in advance.   Ozon has released a FAQ that guides investors through the impact of redomiciliation. The FAQ can be found here . Holders of depositary shares will be able to apply for forced conversion in order to receive ordinary shares in Ozon IPJSC. The process and deadlines for forced conversion will be communicated in due course.  

In this post we provide a sixth update on recent Russian court decisions.  Case 6: Forced conversion in 2025 as a result of an unjustified rejection of the request for forced conversion in 2022 The sixth case involves US citizen mr. Zlatin who owned 20,000 ADR's (depositary receipts) of Sberbank via the broker HilltopSecurities. Hilltop refused to carry out a request for standard conversion.  Mr. Zlatin therefore applied for forced conversion. Raiffeisenbank rejected this request because the documents did not meet the standards set by Raiffeisenbank to execute the request for forced conversion. Mr. Zlatin then went to court in Moscow. He filed his claim relatively late in April 2024. When the case came to an end at the end of 2024 the first rulings from the Supreme Court started to come back in other cases. The ruling by the Supreme Court in those other cases that stated that Raiffeisenbank had unjustly set unreasonable standards for forced conversion and forced transfer. This...

In this post we provide a fifth update on recent Russian court decisions.  Case 5: Forced conversion in 2025 as a result of an unjustified rejection of the request for forced conversion in 2022 The fifth case involves mr. Pelevin who owned GDR's and ADR's (depositary receipts) of NLMK (8,600 GDR's) and Surgutneftegas (17,469 ADR's that represented preferred shares) via the broker Citibank NA London. Citibank NA London refused to carry out a request for standard conversion.  Mr. Pelevin therefore applied for forced conversion. Raiffeisenbank rejected this request because the documents did not meet the standards set by Raiffeisenbank to execute the request for forced conversion. Mr. Pelevin then went to court and lost the initial cases. Eventually the Russian Supreme Court ruled in favour of mr. Pelevin and ordered that Moscow court had to reconsider the case.  On 4th of June 2025 the full judgement from the court of Moscow became available. The court ruled in favour of m...

In this post we provide a third update on recent Russian court decisions. Case 3: Raiffeisenbank was ordered to pay financial compensation for failing to execute a request for forced conversion The third case involves mr. Nesterenko that held ADR's (depositary receipts) of MTS via Interactive Brokers. Mr. Nesterenko requested Raiffeisenbank forcefully convert of his MTS ADR's. Raiffeisenbank Russia refused the request which a general statement that included various reasons why such a request can be rejected. Mr. Nesterenko considered the rejection to be unlawful and went to court to request compensation from Raiffeisenbank. The court determined that mr. Nesterenko submitted the documents that he could reasonably gather and that Raiffeisen put unreasonable conditions in place. The court also considered that Raiffeisenbank, as a professional bank, has it's own resources to verify the information that was provided. The court decided that Raiffeisenbank had to pay compens...