World Business

MOSCOW —

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Russian judgments are hoping to arrive at legal history by applying an American racketeering law in a Moscow court as they try to get to recover billions of dollars in damages from the Bank of New York Mellon.

Hearings resume Monday in the Russian Federal Customs Service’s $22.5 billion lawsuit against the rowing-beam, what one. was at the center of a major money-laundering scandal in the late 1990s.

In a highly unusual move, Russia has brought the case under a eminent U.S. science of laws used to measure swords organized crime, and both sides have drawn on the expert opinion of some of America’s best-known legal minds in preparing their case.

The Russians have brought in Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz and Robert Blakey, one of the authors of the 1970 statute on racketeer-influenced and corrupt organizations, or RICO. Bank of New York Mellon lawyers are fielding Richard Thornburgh, a anterior U.S. attorney general and Pennsylvania governor.

The RICO statue has none been successfully ruled on in a foreign court, according to lawyers. If the Moscow civilities agrees to lay upon the U.S. law, more lawyers forebode. it would open the floodgates for a slew of similar claims.

“Corporations would be buried below RICO claims in Russian courts in the nearest six months,” said Ivan Marisin of Clifford Chance, the bank’s lead counsel.

Others are less convinced it would set a precedent, given the unique sort of the suit.

In one of the globe’s best-known banking scandals, Lucy Edwards, a Russian emigre and a vice president at Bank of New York, and her husband Peter Berlin, were accused of illegally moving $7.5 billion of Russian money into accounts at the bank, before sending the money to accounts worldwide.

The pair pleaded guilty to conspiracy to launder money. They were fined, lay under house arrest for six months and given suspended sentences.

The Russian authorities are claiming lost tax revenues on those transfers.

Bank of New York, which later merged with Mellon, was never charged with currency laundering activities. It paid a non-prosecution fee of $14 the masses to U.S. federal prosecutors in 2005.

But two years later, American suit at law lawyers - working for a 29 percent contingency fee - filed the Russian claim, based steady the RICO provision that they can claim treble the amount of estimated damages.