Cyprus authorities have run out of patience with high-up bankers Andreas Vgenopoulos and Efthymios Bouloutas, and are proceeding to file a lawsuit against them in connection with the collapse of Laiki Bank, which imploded in March 2013, leaving thousands of savers stranded and shutting down the rest of the banking system for over two weeks.

Vgenopoulos and Bouloutas have refused to answer questions from Athens, and will have to be subpoenaed and brought to Cyprus.

Since April 2015, Greek and Cypriot authorities have been working together in an investigation centring on the two men after a police investigation was handed over to Attorney-general Costas Clerides.

Charges are also expected to be lodged against other former top officials in the ex-Laiki bank, which sucked up nine billion euros of the ECB’s Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) before going bankrupt.

Nicosia district court has issued an earlier order against Vgenopoulos and Efthymios Bouloutas after a lawsuit was filed against the two bankers by the administrator of of Laiki Bank freezing Vgenopoulos’ assets, which total 3.79 billion euros. The court order forbids Marfin Investment Group, which had merged with Laiki, from transferring any of these assets outside Cyprus.

The businessman’s reaction to his legal woes has been typically explosive, and he referred to abusive lawsuits, unauthorised Cyprus courts, legal acrobatics and arbitrariness. The truth will shine in the International Court of Arbitration, he said in a statement. His reputation will be vindicated after the court case, he said.

Vgenopoulos joined Laiki Bank after it merged with the Greek firm Marfin Egnatia, but the troubled merger fell apart after the Greek debt haircut, in which Laiki lost 1.8 billion euros in just one year. The businessman left Laiki in November 2011, and it was subsequently nationalised after turning to the state for financial support. At the time he left Laiki, Vgenopoulos still owned a 28 percent stake in the bank.

The banking tycoon has been widely blamed in the media for allowing Laiki to continue to invest in Greek bonds, even though Greece was in significant financial trouble as of 2009. Under Vgenopoulos’ administration in 2011, Laiki Bank had already borrowed 2.5 billion euros, plus another 3.8 billion in other facilities provided by the ECB, said finance ministry general director Christos Patsalides. This is according to testimony he gave to a government probe into the island’s current economic collapse.