A director's exit

PR PEOPLE at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development often moan about the lack of coverage that the media gives their worthy efforts in modernising the ex-communist world (sample: the Armenian Small Municipalities Water Project). They may be less thrilled about the headlines from a new scandal, perhaps the biggest in the bank's history, involving four of the senior Russians who represent that country at the bank.

A brief statement on the EBRD website says only that:

The EBRD has agreed to a request from the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and from the Russian authorities to lift the immunity of four officials assigned to the EBRD by the Russian government.

The purpose of lifting the immunity is to facilitate investigations by both UK police and by Russian authorities into alleged criminal activities.

The officials either work or have worked at the EBRD in their capacity as representatives of the Russian government, a shareholder of the EBRD and one of its Countries of Operations.

Independently, and prior to the requests to lift the officials immunity, the EBRD had already launched an internal investigation, whose findings have been shared with the Russian authorities in accordance with the Banks Code of Conduct, and will be made available to the UK police.

A note on the Russian economy's ministry website[link in Russian] is a bit more forthcoming. It names one of the four as Elena Kotova, who was dismissed [link also in Russian] as Russia's board director at the bank in December.

The EBRD invests heavily and sometimes controversially in Russia. It would be risky to draw many conclusions at this stage. Ms Kotova has made no public statement; nobody was answering the phone in her office today and she did not immediately respond to a message asking for comment. The City of London police would not comment on whether the latest investigation is linked to the arrest of two people last Februaryfor "suspected criminal activities".What does seem clear is that the investigation is being pursued with unusual zeal at both the Russian and British ends. Watch this space.