"Ivanishvili must understand that he will recover that billion dollars only if he returns the country to Georgia’s citizens, puts Georgia back on the Euro-Atlantic path, and restores peace to this country", said Tina Bokuchava, Chairwoman of the United National Movement, at a briefing while commenting on Bidzina Ivanishvili’s dispute with Credit Suisse.

According to Bokuchava, yesterday’s ruling by the London court means Ivanishvili no longer even has the illusion of receiving the $607 million that had been awarded to him earlier; this is clearly reflected in the statements made by his own lawyer.

“This is the real reason for Bidzina Ivanishvili’s recent hysteria. In some cases he is being deceived by uninformed and dim-witted subordinates, in others by cowardly and spineless ‘Georgian Dream’ lackeys. They are lying to him when they claim that if he takes more live hostages, the West might agree to negotiate with him and that by imprisoning political opponents he can recover his billion dollars.

The attempts to lift the sanctions imposed by the previous U.S. administration are completely ridiculous and yield nothing. Some businessmen and a few athletes are trying to work on this with the new U.S. administration, but inside the U.S. administration these efforts are regarded as utterly unserious.

Meanwhile, it is entirely realistic that British financial sanctions will be imposed on him soon; every Russian oligarch knows that British sanctions are a real curse and impossible to circumvent, even if the American sanctions were theoretically lifted. Moreover, such behavior will only accelerate the imposition of British sanctions.

And finally: Ivanishvili must understand that he will recover that billion dollars only if he returns the country to Georgia’s citizens, puts Georgia back on the Euro-Atlantic development path, and restores peace to this country. He needs to realize this, accept it, and stop listening to those cowardly, ignorant pro-Russian ‘Georgian Dream’ underlings who are deceiving him. He must stop tormenting the country just to get his billion dollars back. There is a concrete path and concrete steps he can take to achieve that,” Bokuchava said.

The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom (effectively the UK Supreme Court sitting in London) has published its final ruling in the case of Bidzina Ivanishvili v. Credit Suisse. The court dismissed Ivanishvili’s appeal and upheld the obligation to pay him damages (the earlier award was overturned in Credit Suisse’s favor in previous instances, and this final decision rejected Ivanishvili’s claim entirely).