Power to the people!? We learned today as reported from the Moscow Times, an angry Russian man upset with this past year’s relative sharp depreciation of the ruble is going to take the Central Bank of Russia to court over its decision to cease intervening to prop up the Russian currency.
According to the case being brought forth, the Russian man whom is angry with last year’s sharp ruble decline is taking the Russian Central Bank to court over its decision to finally stop intervening in the forex market to support the Russian ruble. News agency RIA Novosti broke this interesting news on Tuesday, citing the press secretary of a Moscow court.
“Mr. V. A. Simonov has filed a claim against the Central Bank of the Russia and government of Russia for criminal negligence,” the Solntsevsky District Court spokeswoman Anastasia Semenikhina was quoted by RIA as saying.
The Central Bank of Russia in November let the ruble freely float on the market sooner than they had planned. The decision was made in order not to burn through even more reserves after weakening oil prices and Western backed sanctions over the Ukraine crisis forced the Central Bank in prior months to spend billions of dollars to prop up the battered currency to stem an all out collapse.
Central Bank of Russia head Elvira Nabiullina had received criticism for not doing enough to prevent Russia’s currency decline, with one State Duma deputy calling her “the most expensive woman in our country’s history” in November of last year.
However, since the start of the year (and in the face of overall dollar strength) the Ruble has bounced back in a big way to trade within a lower but healthy range around the 50-55 RUB to USD mark, whereas before the sanctions and oil price hit the currency, the range was around 30-35. (see chart below: 2 year daily chart, courtesy of BarChart.com).
The court has accepted Simonov’s court claim, but will not begin considering the motion until August 3rd, and as such has not provided copies of his claim to the defendants — the Central Bank and Russian government.