Bachiashvili’s Lawyer Denounces False Charges in Interview

Speaking in an interview with Business Media Georgia, Levan Makharashvili discussed the politically motivated case brought against his client, George Bachiashvili. A translation of the interview follows below.

Question: Thank you for your time and engagement. First of all, let’s start with the topic of crypto currency and I want to start with 5000000 loans. There are counter-arguments on the other side of your argument that contradict this case. The other side says that Bachiashvili was not an investor, Bachiashvili had no collateral, no risks when he received a loan of 5,000,000, and he did not participate in the loan-taking structure, therefore he could not be an investor. Bidzina Ivanishvili was the investor here. In this case, the investment was given in the form of a loan that was not returned. Contrary to these arguments, what risks did Giorgi Bachiashvili take? In short, what was included in this contract that he signed with Bank Kartu.

Answer: First of all, thank you very much for the invitation. I will tell you in detail both the prehistory of the loan, as well as how the events developed afterwards, and I also want to point out that this is not my personal opinion as Bachiashvili’s defender. Any of my statements will be substantiated by the materials in the case. First, it should be noted that for the period of 2014-2015, Giorgi Bachiashvili was the only person in Georgia who was very good at certain cryptocurrencies, believed in the usefulness of this business and decided to invest. Before that, he was making certain types of smaller investments. It was in 2015 that Giorgi Bachiashvili personally reached an agreement with Bitfuri, one of the largest companies in this field, which performs cryptocurrency mining, to sign a one-year mining contract. The value of this contract was finally determined at $6,300,000. What I want to pay attention to is that Bachiashvili had mobilized an amount of 1,300,000 dollars for the period of signing the contract, so he needed 5,000,000 dollars, this is also confirmed by the documentation. This documentation has also been submitted to the prosecutor’s office in the criminal case. When he needed to borrow 5,000,000, he personally knew Bidzina Ivanishvili and asked for help in obtaining a loan. As you know, when targeted credit is issued and Bachiashvili did not have any property other than this 1,300,000 to secure the loan, it involves certain procedures, which is not easy. Accordingly, Bachiashvili states that he had information that Ivanishvili has helped many people to get loans from Kartu Bank. There was nothing unusual here.

Question: Was the loan granted under Bidzina Ivanishvili’s guarantee?

Answer: This is also a lie that from the beginning the loan was given with a loan guarantee. The loan was granted without collateral. It was an unsecured targeted loan in the amount of 5,000,000 for a period of one year. Only after 7 months have passed since the loan was issued, for two months, from March 1 to May 5, 2016, Ivanishvili secured it. And Ivanishvili himself states in his survey minutes that this happened only and only because the banking regulation required it. That is, it is a lie to say that this loan was secured from the beginning

Question: What did the agreement provide, it was a classic loan agreement in terms of purpose, and it provided for the return of this loan at 12 percent? If there was some part of the partnership involved that included some profit from the income, in this case for the bank or its beneficial owner Bidzina Ivanishvili?

Answer: There was no talk about partnership, it was a usual targeted loan agreement issued to fulfill the contract signed between Bachiashvili’s company Mission Gate and Bitfury. And I should also add that Bachiashvili had other alternatives for taking this 5,000,000 as a loan, as he explained in the investigation, although the 12 percent rate offered by the bank was more acceptable for business. This is confirmed by the same case. That is, Bachiashvili was looking for other resources to find money for this contract.

Question: Bachiashvili the owner in the case of Mission Gate? Here, too, the other party appeals that he did not represent it

Answer: This is also a lie, because from June 2014, one year before this loan, Bachiashvili became the legal owner of this company, the beneficial owner, and the company was registered to him, the documentary material of which exists. And already after 2015, the nominal owner of this company is Yuseb Bolkvadze, who is a close relative of Bachiashvili.

Question: That is, the owner, owner, founder was Bachiashvili. Has he not participated in the structure since 2015?

Answer: Who was registered as director in 2015, I don’t want to make a mistake, I can’t tell you, but the company belonged to Bachiashvili. He was the beneficial owner of it and there is documentation of that.

Question: In the end, everything was documented in the loan part for 1 year?

Answer: The loan was repaid within a year, and hundreds of thousands of dollars were paid in interest. Here I must touch on one important issue, namely, the representative of the opposing party claimed that Bachiashvili asked to receive this amount from the so-called investor with a bank loan form, as if it would make it easier for him to access the funds at different intervals. Now imagine… if you and I are partners, which is easier for business, you personally deposit the money (the deposit was made in two installments here) or I go to the bank, go through bureaucratic mechanisms and pay hundreds of thousands of dollars. This too cannot withstand any criticism.

Question: If there was no partnership agreement, this loan was returned with its interest, then what is disputed in this part?

Answer: Look, nothing is in dispute, I will tell you even more, there was no partnership either; There was no agreement on conducting joint business, including a contract signed between them; There was no investment agreement; There is no neutral third-party witness, as Mr. Ivanishvili himself claims, who witnessed their conversation. And the strangest thing in this conjuncture is the fact that all this became a dispute in 2023, i.e. 8 years after the loan was sent.

Question: I want to talk about Mtkur Hess. 100 million increase in the budget of the project obviously raises questions. What was happening in this case, what was Bachiashvili’s involvement in this project, and who made the decision to increase the project by 100 million, that is, who measured the purposefulness of these expenses.

Answer: First, in connection with the project’s cost and delay, Bachiashvili revealed in the investigation that he personally regularly reminded Mr. Ivanishvili every three to six months and explained the reasons. However, the most interesting thing is that the amount of increase in the amount of the project was determined by the tender commission and not by Bachiashvili, and at the same time there was…

Question: Based on what information Giorgi Bachiashvili was providing or what they were looking for?

Answer: No, Bachiashvili has nothing to do with this, objectively, if there were technical grounds for prolonging the project, for example, there was a need to carry out additional works and so on. In such a case, the tender commission implemented this agreement, and the implementation was monitored by the international technical supervisor. On the one hand, Bachiashvili was not authorized to increase the cost of the project, and on the other hand, monitoring was carried out by a neutral international technical supervisor.

Question: There was an assumption that the budget of 130 million was increased by 100 million due to inappropriate spending of funds. Behind this assumption, you have access to information, what evidence does the other side have?

Answer: Leaving everything aside and the fact that I have been in this field for 18 years and this circumstance is very strange to me, the most strange thing is the fact that even the investigation does not dispute this fact with Bachiashvili, when the representative of the opposing side comes out and makes such statements.

Question: Finally, I would like to ask you, what are your plans?

Answer: Our plan was, from the first moment, to cooperate with the investigation as much as possible, and I want to admit that with my personal participation, Bachiashvili was interrogated for several days in a row, 8 hours a day. He handed over his mobile phone. I will tell you more, the expert could not look at this mobile phone and also gave the password of this phone. And for the first time, Bachiashvili appeared in the investigation without a lawyer. If we put all of this together, it clearly proves that this person’s goal was to prove his truth, which we will definitely sing about.