HA! The Russian Government is suing NY kikes for looting Russia after the fall of communism. This probably won't go anywhere for now, but it portends of things to come. Hey jews, eventually you'll get the bill -- with interest.

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Russia sues Bank of New York

By Tatyana Ustinova and Jonathan Stempel1 hour, 37 minutes ago

Russia's federal customs service said on Thursday it had sued Bank of New York Co. (NYSE:BK - news) and was seeking $22.5 billion in damages related to alleged money laundering in the late 1990s.

From 1996 to 1999, bank employees helped to create a "system through which conditions were made for companies and Russian banks to not make the proper payments, thus inflicting a loss against the Russian Federation," Maxim Smal, a lawyer who said he works on behalf of the Russian agency, said in a telephone interview.

Andrey Strukov, head of the customs service's legal department, said in an e-mail that the Federal Customs Service was filing the lawsuit against the bank for damages against the Russian Federation.

Bank of New York shares fell as much as 4.9 percent early on Thursday before closing down 1.1 percent.

Shares of Mellon Financial Corp. (NYSE:MEL - news), which the bank agreed to buy in December for $16.5 billion, fell as much as 2.2 percent but closed 0.7 percent higher.

The lawsuit follows Bank of New York's agreement in November 2005 to pay $38 million to settle two U.S. criminal investigations, including a probe into an alleged money-laundering conspiracy that investigators said moved billions of dollars through the bank's accounts.

Prosecutors said the bank "admitted its criminal conduct," and agreed to pay $26 million to the government and $12 million to other banks that lost money.

Bank of New York said in a statement on Thursday that it had not seen the Russian agency's complaint, but that any such lawsuit would be "totally without merit, if not frivolous."

It also said lawyers purporting to represent the agency had offered to settle for "a tiny fraction of the amount now claimed. (E)vents related to the lawsuit occurred more than ten years ago and were previously resolved by the company."

ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES

Some analysts downplayed the lawsuit's significance.

"Although we can't completely ignore the potential ... for some type of financial responsibility to Bank of New York, on the surface, we believe the stock move is overdone on the downside," Banc of America Securities analyst Kenneth Usdin wrote in a research report. He rates Bank of New York "buy."

The U.S. money laundering probe began in 1998 and concerned accounts once controlled by Lucy Edwards, a former vice president in the bank's Eastern European division, and her husband Peter Berlin, as well as others.

In 2000, Edwards and Berlin pleaded guilty to being part of a conspiracy to move $7 billion through Bank of New York accounts, and to helping two Russian banks conduct illegal activities in the United States.

A federal judge sentenced the couple last July to six months home confinement and ordered them to pay $725,000 in restitution and fines.

The merger of Bank of New York and Pittsburgh-based Mellon is scheduled to close around July 1, creating the world's largest custody bank and one of its largest asset managers.

Founded in 1784 by Alexander Hamilton, the first U.S. Treasury Secretary, Bank of New York sold its bank branches in October.

Bank of New York shares closed down 46 cents at $40.75, after falling earlier to $39.19. Mellon shares closed up 3 cents at $43.75, after earlier falling to $42.76.

(Additional reporting by Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070517/bs_nm/russia_bank_lawsuit_dc_5