UniCredit drops parts of EU court appeal against ECB’s Russia demands

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ROME (Reuters) -Italian bank UniCredit said on Thursday it was dropping some elements in its application to the European Court of Justice against a European Central Bank request to reduce exposure to Russia.

The decision to amend the complaint to the court and withdraw parts of it follows clarifications UniCredit received from the ECB, the bank said in a statement on its website.

“There remain outstanding points within the decision issued by the ECB which require ruling by the ECJ, but upon which UniCredit remains open to constructive dialogue with the ECB in the hope of resolution,” the bank added.

It did not elaborate on which parts of the appeal had been withdrawn.

At the end of June, UniCredit turned to the European Court of Justice seeking an annulment of ECB demands it hastens steps to cut its Russia exposure, more than two years into the Ukraine war.

UniCredit owns Russia’s 15th largest bank by assets, from which it received 137 million euros ($148.78 million) in dividends last year.

On Wednesday the Italian bank said that, under its exit plan, it would still process 8.5 billion euros of cross-border payments next year, down from 11.2 billion euros at the end of June.

CEO Andrea Orcel said that while European economies continued to source materials from Russia, UniCredit was one of three banks those payments could go through.

UniCredit has challenged the ECB’s requests because it says that complying with them would expose it to risks of breaching Russian laws and could give local authorities reason to seize Unicredit’s local assets.

“UniCredit … is focused on delivering an orderly, accelerated solvent wind-down of its Russian business within the parameters of the legal, regulatory and sanction framework,” it said.

($1 = 0.9208 euros)

(Reporting by Valentina Za, editing by Giulia Segreti and Susan Fenton)