The High Court of London, in its July 30, 2025, ruling regarding PrivatBank, detailed the mechanisms used to siphon funds from the institution, mentioning Monobank co-founder Oleg Horokhovsky 12 times. According to court documents, the former First Deputy Chairman of the Board at PrivatBank was directly involved in approving highly questionable credit decisions prior to the bank’s nationalization. While Horokhovsky is not a primary defendant in the case, the court concluded that the management at the time demonstrated a severe disregard for core banking controls.
From 2005 to 2016, Oleg Horokhovsky rose through the ranks to become the First Deputy Chairman of the Board at PrivatBank and served on its credit committee. This body approved multi-million dollar disbursements to companies controlled by the bank’s former ultimate beneficial owners.
The London court outlined a scheme in which massive corporate loans were granted to entities lacking sufficient collateral, financial reporting, or legitimate commercial activity. Key examples cited in the case files include:
Trade Point Agro: A company that secured tens of millions of dollars in loans just months after its inception, without undergoing standard risk assessments.
Rossyn Investing Corp (Cyprus): An offshore entity with no active business or assets, whose debt obligations were repeatedly extended by the bank.
From the court materials:
Members of the credit committee knew or ought to have known to whom these loans were being issued and what the actual chances of recovery were. Ultimately, these decisions facilitated the siphoning of at least $1.9 billion from the bank, out of a total $5.5 billion in losses.
Notably, Horokhovsky, alongside Dmytro Yatsenko, also co-chaired the bank’s ethics and compliance committee—the very body tasked with blocking insider lending. However, court records indicate that no regulatory action was ever taken by the committee.
Financial sector analysis points to a tight timeline: Horokhovsky was still signing off on disputed credit decisions in November 2016, just months before the official launch of Monobank in the summer of 2017.
Discussions have long persisted within the fintech industry regarding whether the new venture utilized proprietary software solutions and internal technologies originally developed for PrivatBank. Publicly, these claims remain a subject of ongoing debate.
Following PrivatBank’s nationalization, Oleg Horokhovsky’s contact with oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky continued. Between 2018 and 2019, the two were spotted meeting in Geneva, Tel Aviv, and Dnipro. Documents indicate that the banker sought «instructions» from the former owner regarding an unspecified financial transaction.
In 2019, amid a transition of political power in Ukraine, Horokhovsky—who held a 0.38% stake in the bank—filed a lawsuit seeking to invalidate the PrivatBank nationalization agreement. He continued to challenge the state’s acquisition in appellate courts for some time. The lawsuit was withdrawn only later, a move the businessman publicly attributed to a reluctance to litigate against the state during wartime.