Russia criticises bank asset freezing

Russian officials have sharply criticised a decision by a French court to freeze the assets of the Russian Central Bank held in France.

The assets were frozen last week, after a Swiss company sought to recover millions of dollars which it said the Russian government owed.

A senior central bank official described the ruling as a serious blow, which allowed a claim against the government to be transferred to the central bank retroactively.

An executive of the Paris-based Eurobank, where Russia's Central Bank is the main shareholder, said Russia would appeal. It followed on from a ruling by an arbitration court in Sweden which froze more than sixty-thousand dollars worth of Russian central bank assets.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service