Tsvetan Vasilev

In 2019, Bulgarian authorities arrested key witnesses in the ongoing trial: critics argue this is an illegitimate attempt to influence their testimonies. The government is also going after Vasilev's wife who is a university professor by raising charges. Meanwhile, the government amended Bulgaria's criminal codes in a rush several times: in the eyes of Bulgarian jurist Tatyana Doncheva, these amendments were made to help the Prosecutor's Office in the trial against Vasilev by compromising the equality of arms in criminal proceedings and by making it easier to convict people based on fabricated charges. The Association of Bulgarian Judges has deemed that many of these amendments are anti-constitutional.

After inexplicably modifying charges several times, in July 2017 Bulgaria's prosecution indicted Vasilev with embezzlement along with 17 other people. According to Reuters, the case is "seen as one of the Balkan nation's biggest post-communist fraud investigations". The Prosecutor's Office set a record by drafting an indictment which is more than 5000 pages long: Bulgaria's Deputy General Prosecutor Ivan Geshev has compared writing it to landing on the Moon with a diesel engine and transplanting a brain. However, it has been observed that two-thirds of the indictment do not seem to be related to the charges.

Vasilev argues that the charges against him are political. He has submitted applications against Bulgaria before the European Court of Human Rights. In August 2017, he also submitted an application under the US Magnitsky Act, which sanctions corrupt government officials implicated in human rights abuses, against Bulgaria's General Prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov and media mogul and Member of Parliament Delyan Peevski. His application has been supported by Bill Richardson.

In March 2016, the Bulgarian government (through the Commission for Illegal Assets Forfeiture (CIAF)) filed a lawsuit against Vassilev as the main shareholder of Corpbank. The lawsuit accuses Vassilev of using bank money to personally acquire assets and property. The government's lawsuit seeks 2.2 billion leva, which is equivalent to US$1.3 billion. Vassilev blames the failure of the bank on a plot hatched by his competitors and the government, ultimately to gain control over the wealthy telecommunications company Vivacom. In December 2016, Bulgarian and Swiss courts froze over 600 million levs of Vassilev's money.

Vasilev also argues that Bulgarian authorities close their eyes to irregularities in the insolvency proceedings. He was concerned about the fate of Corpbank's strategic assets, such as Vivacom. In particular, VTB Capital controlled 33% of Vivacom through their daughter company Crusher even though they were not the true owner as the price of the shares had already been paid by Corpbank's SPV Technological Center-Institute for Microelectronics (TC-IME). In murky circumstances, the shares of Vivacom were sold by VTB Capital at a devalued rate at a tender in London to Bulgarian Spas Rousev in September 2016. There is pending litigation before the London High Court for allegedly illegal seizure of the equity stake in Vivacom. Vasilev has raised concern that Vivacom's new owners would probably fail to pay the company's debt to Corpbank and would hurt the interests of the creditors in the insolvency proceedings. It has been suggested that Spas Rousev is a strawman of Delyan Peevski.

Vasilev is former chairman of the supervisory board of Corporate Commercial Bank AD, the fifth bank in Bulgaria based on assets, which collapsed after a bank run in 2014. as well as its majority shareholder. Tsvetan Vasilev is also former chairman of the supervisory board of Victoria FATA Insurance as well as the supervisory board of Vivacom, a Bulgarian telecom company. Vasilev is the recipient of the badge of honor of the University of National and World Economy in Sofia and Doctor Honoris Causa of the "St Ivan Rilski" University of Mining and Geology.

By 2014, Corpbank was Bulgaria's fourth-largest bank. The bank held an extensive portfolio of companies and was the only bank in Bulgaria investing in start-ups and entrepreneurs. Because the bank was making these types of investments that no other banks were doing, its profits and regional power grew. Until its destruction by Bulgarian regulators and the looting of its assets, Corpbank was arguably the most innovative and entrepreneurial bank in the Balkans.

Because of its growth, wealth, and power, in April 2014 one of the most influential political parties in Bulgaria (DPS) visited Vassilev. The request was simple: transfer assets for free to the "mobster circle of DPS." Vassilev refused.

Suddenly, by June and July 2014, Corpbank customers withdrew cash in a panic. Prior to the bank run, several Bulgarian media outlets ran stories accusing Vassilev of trying to organize the murder of a media titan who had close connections to the government, Delyan Peevski. Prosecutors raided companies affiliated with Corpbank. They confiscated financial documents from those companies. TV stations ran live feeds of the prosecution's raids. Over the course of 4 days, over 20 percent of Corpbank's assets were withdrawn in cash by depositors.

In late 2014, the bank collapsed which caused the largest financial crisis in Bulgaria since the 1990s. Bulgaria's central bank, Bulgarian National Bank, then took control over the bank. Corpbank was officially shut down and its assets taken over by the Bulgarian National Bank in July 2014. According to media reports at that time, the shutdown was due to a dispute between Vassilev and "Bulgarian media oligarch Delyan Peevski."

After spending some time in Austria, Vasilev is currently residing in Belgrade, Serbia (he voluntarily surrendered to Serbian police officers on 16 September 2014). In March 2015, the Appellate Court of Belgrade ruled against an extradition request by the Bulgarian authorities.

"Delyan Peevski is simply one of the main tools that the Bulgarian political mafia uses to blackmail Bulgarian business—the visible part of a rather large iceberg of corruption," Vassilev said in a Forbes interview. "The political mafia is persistently trying to downgrade what happened to Corpbank to a personal conflict between Mr. Peevski and me, which is utterly untrue. I had a conflict with the political mafia ruling the country, which has been blackmailing and threatening me for many years."

The company's 2013 financial report showed considerable improvement: EBITDA increased from BGN 267 million to BGN 339 million.

In 2011 he received the Mr. Economy award (the grand award of the Economics magazine in Bulgaria) for overall contribution to the development of the Bulgarian economy. In 2012 Vasilev received an award for his overall contribution to the development of motorcycle sports in Bulgaria by the Bulgarian Motorcycle Federation.

Experts claim that the Vivacom deal was amidst the most complicated ones on the Bulgarian financial market. The restructuring was approved by the European Commission and the international creditors of Vivacom. Prior to the acquisition by Vasilev and VTB Capital, Vivacom had incurred significant debt after a buyout by AIG in 2007, which subsequently sold its shares to PineBridge Investments.

Starting from scratch in 2001, it was a pioneer in export financing to Bulgarian energy producers and ammunition manufacturers previously without banking options. Unlike its rivals, Corpbank also made direct investments in its clients and emerging enterprises in Bulgaria, most notably the country's leading telecom Vivacom, which it bought from creditors along with affiliates of VTB Capital in 2012. Vivacom is the leading market provider in Bulgaria for a variety of telecommunications services, including landline, mobile, Internet, radio, and TV. It has approximately 3,500 employees. Vassilev saw the opportunity and raised the capital to make the purchase.

Between 2000 and 2003, Vasilev served as chairman of the executive board and executive director of Corporate Commercial Bank AD. In 2003 he became its majority shareholder and chairman of its supervisory board.

Tsvetan Vasilev started his career in finance in 1992 when he founded his brokerage company Bromak EOOD and his investment intermediary Fina-S AD. Between 1995 and 1999 he headed the Foreign Exchange Operations and Liquidity Department of Central Cooperative Bank, and in 1997 he also became member of the bank's board of directors. In 1999 he left Central Cooperative Bank to head the Markets and Liquidity Department at CB Bulgaria Invest (now Allianz Bulgaria Commercial Bank).

Tsvetan Vasilev (also spelled Tzvetan Vassilev; Bulgarian: Цветан Василев ; born 1959) is a Bulgarian entrepreneur. He is the former majority shareholder and chairman of the supervisory board of Corporate Commercial Bank, the fifth-largest Bulgarian bank based on assets, which collapsed in 2014 after a bank run. Vasilev argues the bank faced a corporate raiding attack orchestrated by media mogul and politician Delyan Peevski with the help of Bulgaria's Prosecutor's Office and the Bulgarian central bank, so that its most attractive assets could be stolen. Vasilev has submitted an application under the US Global Magnitsky Act against Delyan Peevski and Bulgaria's General Prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov and is challenging the withdrawal of the bank's license before the European Court of Human Rights. Depositors at the Corporate Commercial Bank have submitted a claim against Peevski, the Bulgarian National Bank and others under the US Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act: they argue that the defendants engaged in fraud after the bank's closure to deviate assets. Meanwhile, Bulgaria's Prosecutor's Office indicted Vasilev along with 17 other people for the bank's alleged failure in 2017.