A ruling at the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York has awarded Bank of China-owned lessor BOC Aviation USD406.2 million at the expense of Russia’s AirBridgeCargo (RU, Ulyanovsk Vostochny) for lapsed lease payments since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

In a 57-page decision seen by Reuters, US District Judge Lewis Liman found the defendant and its parent company, Amsterdam Schiphol-based Volga-Dnepr Logistics BV, liable, after international sanctions that followed the invasion left the plaintiff, BOC Aviation, unable to reclaim three of its Boeing freighters.

Liman said the lessor had proven that the Russian government had effectively seized the aircraft by keeping them from being used outside Russia, “save perhaps to areas in Ukraine or for the purposes of the war.” This undermined the ability of BOC Aviation to execute its right to reclaim possession.

The judge rejected the Russian carrier’s defence that neither side could have foreseen the circumstances, and he dismissed the argument that it was impossible to ground the planes outside Russia because Moscow had ordered them to be flown back.

BOC Aviation said it was able to recover one B747-8(F) and two of its four engines, while the two other jets of the same type and two engines remain in Russia. As ch-aviation previously reported, B747-8F VQ-BFE (msn 60118) which BOC had leased to AirBridgeCargo returned to the United States in March 2022 after the lessor won an order by a US court to repossess it.

BOC Aviation said at the time that AirBridgeCargo had breached lease agreements for two other B747s, VQ-BFU (msn 60117) and VP-BIN (msn 60119), when it ignored instructions from the lessor to ground them in China, instead flying them to Moscow even after the airworthiness certificate of one of them had been suspended. Both are now stored at Moscow Sheremetyevo, the ch-aviation fleets module shows.

According to ch-aviation fleets data, AirBridgeCargo’s fleet consists of sixteen aircraft, namely twelve B747-8(F)s, three B747-400ERFs, and one B777-200F, but all are currently inactive. Late last month, sources close to its parent, Volga-Dnepr Group, told the Russian broadcaster RBK TV that AirBridgeCargo now aims to resume flight operations using Russian-made Il-96-400s instead of its fleet of Boeing jets.

Liman’s ruling came after a one-day non-jury trial held on April 3, the case being BOC Aviation Ltd v AirBridgeCargo Airlines LLC et al, No. 22-02070.