19:00, 11 August 2012

Tbilisi City Court fines Bidzina Ivanishvili by 12 million US dollars

Today, the Tbilisi City Court today has found the billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, the leader of the oppositional coalition "Georgian Dream", to be an administrative offender for illegal donations and fined him by 20,243,827 laris (12 million US dollars).

On July 26, Bidzina Ivanishvili fully paid the earlier imposed fine of 74.3 million laris (about 45.6 million US dollars), and the execution sum of 5.2 million laris (about 3.2 million US dollars).

Today, the court has imposed a new fine on the basis of the act, submitted by the audit service. According to the document, Ivanishvili took a large sum of money from his account and donated it – via other persons – to the "Georgian Dream".

Bidzina Ivanishvili was fined by the sum, five times the size of the donation, the "Georgia-Online" reports.

By decision of the court, the leader of the "Georgian Dream" has to pay the fine within seven days, while the ruling can be appealed against within 48 hours, the "News.ge" reports.

The "InterPressNews" adds that Mr Ivanishvili's lawyers treat the ruling of the Tbilisi City Court as illegal.