The Bank of New York Mellon is seeking to calm jittery shareholders and analysts by assuring them that any claims stemming from ongoing litigation in a Moscow court would have no material impact because the judgments could not be enforced.

The case is “totally without merit and invalid,” an executive vice president and chief litigation counsel, Matthew Biben, said during a conference call yesterday. The bank’s chief executive, Robert Kelly, and outside counsel, Jonathan Schiller, founding partner at Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, also participated in the call. Investors seemed to welcome the additional information, as the stock rose 6.6%, to $43.37, yesterday.

The conference call was arranged in the wake of news yesterday that the court decided to adjourn hearings until May 13. The Russian government followed with a press release claiming that the Moscow arbitration court where the case is being heard had mandated that the Bank of New York Mellon “turn over documentary evidence substantiating more than $3.6 billion in illegal wire transfers between several Russian banks and bogus companies set up by Bank of New York managers in New York.”

Bank officials dismissed this as bluster from the trial lawyers with the Miami-based firm Podhurst Orseck.

“What they want is legal fees; what they want is money,” Mr. Kelly said, adding that before the case was filed the lawyers had approached the bank to settle “for a tiny percentage” of the amount they are now seeking.

At issue is a money laundering scheme from the 1990s, when two Russian émigrés moved $7.5 billion to American accounts from Russia via unlicensed wire transfers. The Russian government is suing the Bank of New York Mellon for $22.5 billion under America’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which Mr. Biben and the bank argue is not valid. “Only the U.S. can bring a claim under RICO,” he said.

Calling these “fairly unusual times and an unusual legal case,” Mr. Kelly said he had decided to participate in the call “to set the record straight.” As for any future conference calls to clarify this case, Mr. Kelly said: “This is not something I plan to do again.”

The plaintiff lawyers have argued that even if American courts throw out the case, they could pursue a judgment in countries where the Bank of New York Mellon has business and where the governments may be more sympathetic, such as Abu Dhabi and Singapore. Mr. Schiller said the bank has looked into the legal situation in 90 countries where the bank has a presence, and is confident that any judgment against the bank would not result in any claims.

As for collecting any judgment in Russia, the bank said it has few assets there, save for a small office of five full-time staffers. Revenues generated in Russia make up no more than 1% of its total revenue, or less than $140 million a year, according to Bear Stearns analysts. “We are committed to support Russian companies,” Mr. Kelly said, adding: “We are a global company and that is how we will continue to drive this company forward.” He said the bank has “no plans of withdrawing from Russia” and that its business there has grown during the last year.

Mr. Kelly also said on the call that the bank had been reaching out to Russian decision-makers on the case, but had not yet been successful in getting it dismissed. “We have had discussions with groups in the Russian government and elsewhere,” Mr. Kelly said. “We are using all avenues possible.”

Analysts on the call were largely dismissive of the case. “It doesn’t pass the smell test,” an analyst at UBS, Glenn Schorr, said.

“We acknowledge that a Russian government agency could well win a judgment against a U.S. bank in a Russian court, despite the novel legal theory behind the case, but the business and assets of the Bank of New York Mellon in Russia are relatively small, and would not be sufficient to pay the large amount of damages claimed in the suit,” according to a report by Bear Stearns released yesterday. The analysts said the bank “continues to rank as one of our top three ideas among large-cap banks.”

This is not the first time Mr. Schiller has battled these trial lawyers. Boies Schiller, which represented Philip Morris Cos., defeated the trial lawyer when they represented the governments of Honduras, Belize, and some Brazilian states and cities in suing tobacco companies for deliberately concealing knowledge of the dangers of smoking.

“This is just silly season,” Mr. Kelly said of the case.