Turkish tanker owner Palmali is to appeal against a court bankruptcy ruling concerning its Russian unit.
The November decision by the court in Rostov-on-Don effectively handed its fleet to creditor Sberbank, the Russian lender.
The Russian subsidiary, Palmali LLC, owes $180m to Sberbank, with the majority of its 58 ships held as collateral.
Palmali also owes RUB 1.6bn ($24m) to Russia's tax authorities, Reuters reported.
Palmali's owner, Mubariz Mansimov, told Reuters the company, which is headquartered in Istanbul, planned to challenge the ruling.
"We will continue legal actions against Sberbank and tax authorities of the Russian Federation," he added. "For some reasons, Sberbank didn't want to restructure (our debt)."
Bankruptcy the "best way forward"
Sberbank said bankruptcy proceedings were the best way to resolve the Palmali unit's debt problems.
"Meanwhile, we support the company's willingness to continue its business as usual until after the bankruptcy process is finished, this would help to preserve the fleet and workers," Sberbank said.
Palmali has around 3,500 staff in Russia.
Mansimov said sanctions against Russia had "paralysed" the firm, which uses the Russian flag on most of its vessels operating in Russia.
"We can't enter Ukraine with a Russian flag aboard. There is also pressure from the western companies. They just don't want to hand their cargoes to a Russian flag," he said.
The Russian company had been hoping to avoid bankruptcy and had come up with a financial recovery plan, it was reported earlier this year.
But at a meeting of creditors in September, Sberbank voted to open bankruptcy proceedings.
Sberbank is not commenting on its plans for the vessels.
Court documents cited previously showed that in 2013 and 2014, Sberbank opened three credit lines for Palmali.
The first involved $56.5m intended to refinance vessels and repay a loan to Alfa-Bank, while the second was for $104m to buy 10 vessels.
The other loan of $60.3m was for the acquisition of another five ships.
Palmali owes $184.2m on these loans, the RBC website reported. There was also another loan of $34m made in March 2014.
At the end of 2017, Sberbank demanded that the remaining $26.6m of this loan be repaid.
The bank has mortgages on 46 Palmali vessels and five properties, court documents showed.
The Russian unit is listed by Clarksons as owning four small tankers, while the wider group operates more than 200 ships, including MPPs and chartered-in tonnage.
