Russia is close to signing an out-of-court settlement with the Bank of New York Mellon after failing to prove the bank’s guilt in a $22.5bn lawsuit, finance minister Alexei Kudrin said on Wednesday.

Mr Kudrin’s comments to the Russian parliament sought to draw a line under a scandal that harks back to Russia’s chaotic 1990s and which has drawn in some of the heaviest hitters in US litigation on both sides.