The lawyer of George Bachiashvili, the former CEO of the Co-investment Fund, Levan Makharashvili spoke in detail about the charges against his client that were brought forward by Bidzina Ivanishvili. Ivanishvili disputes that with a $5 million loan granted to George Bachiashvili's company by "Cartu Bank", Bachiashvili made a successful investment in mining cryptocurrencies and received 8,253 bitcoins as a net profit as of 2017. Ivanishvili alleges that these bitcoins should have been allocated to him, but as Makharashvili describes, the loan agreement never included a clause that mined bitcoins should have been shared and the company owned by George Bachiashvili fully paid his obligations towards the Ivanishvili’s Bank ‘Cartu’.
"George Bachiashvili was one of the first in Georgia to actively invest in cryptocurrency business as he believed in these technologies. In 2015, he personally reached an agreement with one of leading companies in this field "Bitfury", in particular "Bitfury" agreed to sign a one-year contract with Bachiashvili on cryptocurrency mining, the value of which was determined at 6.3 million dollars. The relevant contract is presented in the case.
George Bachiashvili had mobilized 1.3 million dollars at the time, he needed additional $5 millions to secure his participation in the project. Based on long business and personal relations with Bidzina Ivanishvili, he asked him to help receiving a loan from Ivanishvili’s ‘Cartu’ Bank. It should be noted that according to Bachiashvili's information, Bidzina Ivanishvili has helped several other people to get loans from ‘Cartu’ Bank. Finally, Bachiashvili's company took a loan of 5 million dollars from the Bank for a period of 1 year, at an annual rate of 12 percent. It should also be noted that George Bachiashvili had another alternative for taking a loan, which he talked about in detail during his witness statement, but the terms of Cartu were more acceptable for his business.
In 1 year and a few months, Bachiashvili's company paid off the loan including the interest.
It is a lie to claim that Bachiashvili did not take any risks during the project, as he invested 1.3 million USD and in the case of failure, Bachiashvili would've been first to lose 1.3 million USD.
It is also a lie that the loan was issued with Bidzina Ivanishvili's personal guarantee. The truth is as follows: the bank issued an unsecured loan in August 2015, and only 7 months later, due to banking regulations, from March 1 to May 5, 2016 (for two months) Ivanishvili guaranteed this loan. We want to stress the fact that this was only due to banking regulations and it was clearly confirmed by Mr. Ivanishvili himself in his whitness statement.
It was a conventional loan agreement issued to settle a contract between Bachiashvili's company, Mission Gate, and Bitfury. I should also add that Bachiashvili had other alternatives for borrowing this 5 million dollars, as he explained to the investigation, although even the 12% rate offered by the bank was more acceptable for business," George Bachiashvili's lawyer Levan Makharashvili explains to BMG.
On July 6, the Tbilisi city court made a decision to release Bachiashvili with a 2.5 million bail. He was forbidden to leave the country without the permission of the prosecutor's office.
