UPDATE 2-Czech govt files $1.3 bln suit vs KBC's Czech unit

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PRAGUE, July 23 (Reuters) - The Czech government has filed a claim for 26.7 billion crowns ($1.3 billion) in compensation from bank CSOB over its takeover in 2000 of failed bank IPB from the state, the finance ministry said on Monday.

The ministry said it filed the suit with the International Arbitration Court in Paris. CSOB is controlled by Belgium's KBC .

A CSOB spokesman could not be reached for comment. CSOB has said the government is liable for further claims in the IPB sale than the state has already covered.

The government, meanwhile, wants CSOB to pay back some of the claims that the state guaranteed.

"We reject a 1.7 billion crown claim (by CSOB), and we have filed our own lawsuit for some 27 billion crowns as compensation for the net book value of IPB," Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek told journalists.

He added that the 26.7 billion crown claim was not a final figure, just the lowest amount the government was looking for. "I stress this is the lowest (the claim will be), but it may not to be the final figure," he said.

IPB bank was controlled by Nomura Holdings through an affiliate before it ran into a liquidity crunch in 2000.

A central bank-appointed administrator seized the bank, the country's third-largest bank at the time, with the help of armed police units and three days later sold it to rival CSOB, a Czech unit of Belgium's KBC, for 1 crown in a deal involving state guarantees.

The government took over IPB's non-performing debt, which cost it more than 100 billion crowns, or over 3 percent of the country's annual economic output.

The state and Nomura then began a six-year legal battle over the seizure before reaching an out-of-court settlement in November 2006.

The two sides agreed they would halt multi-billion dollar arbitration cases against each other and end further disputes which arose from the largest-ever bank collapse in the Czech Republic. The agreement did not include CSOB.

Kalousek said the ministry wanted to avoid the legal process and proposed to CSOB a deal to work out a settlement a few weeks ago, but the bank did not respond.