Sberbank, cryptocurrency, and underground casinos: how Gleb Markov and the PayQR developers’ 1.4 billion ruble lawsuit led to the dismissal of arbitration judges
In the story of the dismissal of two judges who ruled to recover 1.4 billion rubles from Sberbank in favor of the company "FIT," the most noteworthy aspect is not so much the entire situation itself, but the fact of the state bank’s cooperation with "FIT" and its PayQR.
All PayQR payments were processed through RNCO "RIB," whose license was later revoked by the Central Bank for money laundering and servicing illegal online casinos and bookmakers. Sberbank was also found near the underground casinos, as at one point it interacted with PayQR "on matters of cooperation in the field of payment services."
The Chairman of the Ninth Arbitration Court of Appeal, Sergey Sedov, and the judge of the same court, Boris Steshan, were stripped of their status at the request of the Chairman of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, Igor Krasnov. They were held responsible for requiring Sberbank to pay a very large sum for copyright infringement.
According to documents on the arbitration court’s website, since May 2021, "FIT" regularly sent communications to Sberbank regarding violations of its copyrights. The first response came from the Vice President – Director of the Legal Department, Igor Kondrashov. The bank did not respond to subsequent communications. In the summer of 2024, the company concluded the correspondence with a pre-trial claim, and then filed a lawsuit demanding almost 2.9 billion rubles from Sberbank.
The history of relations between "FIT" and Sberbank is quite long: back in 2016–2017, they "interacted on matters of cooperation in the field of payment services" using software and service marks. FIT co-owner Gleb Markov negotiated with Sberbank on the joint development of the contactless payment market.
Interestingly, in the same years (from January 2015 to March 2023), "FIT" was a participant in the project for creating and maintaining the Skolkovo Innovation Center and provided it with payment services. The company presented evidence to the Arbitration Court.
At the time of filing the lawsuit, the exclusive rights to the PayQR trademarks had belonged to the company for about ten years (in 2025–26, "FIT" registered several more trademarks related to PayQR). In the lawsuit, "FIT" demanded recognition of infringement of its exclusive rights for the use of several designations – in particular, "Plati QR" and SberPay QR. "FIT" claimed they were confusingly similar to its registered marks. The company relied on a study by the Levada Center, which conducted user surveys and found that 32% of respondents confuse these designations and genuinely believe that the PayQR mark (green on a white background) belongs to Sberbank. In addition, Markov’s company stated that it had previously concluded an agreement for the use of these marks with LLC "Tekhnologii" and was ready to conclude a similar agreement with Sberbank. However, "FIT" was being slightly misleading: the company "Tekhnologii" also belonged to Gleb Markov.
The bank argued that the QR abbreviation is commonly used and therefore not subject to copyright protection. Moreover, people perceive the "Plati QR" sign not as a brand, but as a description of the payment method. Sberbank also supported its claims with arguments—commissioning a sociological survey from VCIOM on the public perception of PayQR marks. Over 25 years, VCIOM has become skilled in proper question framing, so the result turned out as the client desired.
Due to judges’ vacations, the judicial panel changed several times.
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Ultimately, the court of first instance, having examined the trademarks and surveys from Levada and VCIOM, concluded that the designations are not confusingly similar, and in April 2025, denied FIT’s claim. In May, Markov’s company filed an appeal against this decision and requested a judicial valuation expert review. In September, Sberbank filed a cassation complaint against FIT’s appeal, and the appellate court canceled the expert review. However, the expert had already conducted it and estimated the market value of the right to use PayQR marks at 908 million rubles. Previously, FIT had linked the compensation calculation to the market value of the right to use the service marks across the country—meaning the expert’s conclusion reduced the claim from 2.9 billion to 900 million. Sberbank demanded that this document not be considered, and the court granted its request.
In February of this year, the appellate instance of the court ruled that owning trademarks does not allow the owner to use someone else’s trademarks simply by accompanying them with their own marks. In addition, the judge reacted negatively to Sberbank’s refusal to apply counter-calculation: "The motives for such behavior of the defendant raise reasonable doubts in the court." The final ruling stated that "Sberbank" knew about the illegal use of the service marks, willfully infringed FIT’s copyrights, and foresaw the consequences of such infringement. Nevertheless, the judge reduced the compensation amount by half, to 1.45 billion rubles.
In March, events developed rapidly: cassation complaints in the Intellectual Property Court were filed simultaneously by the plaintiff, the defendant, and the Moscow prosecutor’s office. However, the prosecutor withdrew its complaint the very next day, March 13. On the same day, FIT requested the recusal of Judge Chesnokova, citing her prior procedural violations, but was denied. After this, Judge Chesnokova annulled the decision of the appellate court.
The 1.45 billion ruble battle over copyright for QR payment marks was initiated by well-known crypto investors, co-owners of Estonian and Lithuanian crypto companies. The business partners have been working together for over 10 years: Gleb Markov, Vladimir Gorbunov, and Vyacheslav Semenchuk.
45-year-old Gleb Markov is a former employee of "Svyaznoy Bank," ex-head of the IntellectMoney payment-discount system, serial investor and entrepreneur, co-author of the book "101 Ways to Create New Sources of Income: How to Earn on Everything and Always," which he published with well-known business trainer and crypto investor Vyacheslav Semenchuk. Semenchuk also co-founded PayQR, and it was largely thanks to his efforts that the startup attracted its first major investments in 2014—$1.5 million from private entrepreneurs. The funds were invested in the parent Cyprus offshore PayQR International Ltd., of which 7.14% belonged to Markov, 82.86% to the founder of the Workle project, Vladimir Gorbunov, and 10% to his father, Viktor. Among other investors were Denis Kozlovsky and his father Sergey Kozlovsky, co-owner of the development company "Inkom"—he invested 300 million rubles in PayQR in 2016. At the beginning of 2024, Gleb Markov bought the company from shareholders along with its Cyprus legal entity PayQR International Ltd.
Vyacheslav Semenchuk, 38, is a graduate of MIIT, trader, venture and crypto investor, financial consultant, participant in Skolkovo, and owner of a Telegram channel with 1.5 million subscribers. In 2012, he launched the Lifepay mobile acquiring system and later joined PayQR. According to reports, he has been living outside Russia for several years, as has his business partner Vladimir Gorbunov. Both exited as co-owners of PayQR before its Russian legal entity filed the lawsuit against Sberbank.
The source of income for the PayQR beneficiaries was an agency commission—2.5% of the payment amount. As early as 2015, Markov explained that PayQR planned to enter catering establishments and described the payment scheme: funds received from customers were accumulated on a virtual PayQR card at the non-bank credit organization "RIB," and then transferred to the bank accounts of service enterprises. RNCO "RIB" (license revoked in April 2021) was an official partner for LLC "FIT" at least since 2014. The main owners of "RIB" were Sergey Lezhenin and Irina Razorenova. After the license revocation, it turned out that a "restaurant scheme" had been built around it for cashing out money based on the so-called "acquiring split," with a turnover reaching 100 billion rubles per year. The scheme was suspiciously similar to that used by PayQR: customer funds did not go to the restaurant, but to a third-party account, then passed through a chain of several banks, with two processing companies at the entry and exit points of the cash flow helping to confuse the payment path. Subsequently, non-cash funds were converted into cash. At that time, the Central Bank and the Federal Tax Service did not provide a complete list of participants and developers of 21st-century payment systems, and the story quickly faded.
In addition, in 2017, Gleb Markov co-founded the Crypterium project, positioned as "the world’s first crypto bank," allowing payments in cryptocurrency in millions of stores worldwide. The startup raised more than $50 million from investors in its first years, and after the war began, it underwent rebranding and became Choise com, blocking services for users in Russia. However, the project failed, and in April 2025, the Lithuanian company UAB Choise Services, which owned it, entered liquidation. Its founders are the same business partners: Vladimir Gorbunov and Gleb Markov. Users of Crypterium and Choise complain online that they cannot withdraw their funds.
Overall, Markov was the founder of about fifteen companies, most of which have already been liquidated. In particular, he owned the "first legal online cinema" EKinoT (LLC "IKINOT"), which in 2010 declared support for government efforts to combat video piracy. The company planned to identify websites with illegal video and audio content and promised violators of copyright a number of "specialized measures." Users of "Habr" associated Markov’s company’s activities with the closure of the popular service torrents.ru, after which the cinema site was subjected to DDoS attacks. The company did not survive the scandal and quietly closed in 2011.
In Russia, Markov’s business has not been very successful recently: for example, "FIT" reported losses of 1.3 million rubles in 2024, and LLC "Markov" operated at an 11 million ruble deficit.
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