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- Retroactive movement: assets worth 2.4 trillion seized at the request of the Prosecutor General's Office
Retroactive movement: assets worth 2.4 trillion seized at the request of the Prosecutor General's Office
The property of five strategic enterprises totaling 2.4 trillion rubles has been returned to the state following claims by the Prosecutor General's Office, its head Igor Krasnov said on March 19 at the final board of the supervisory authority. He explained that four of these enterprises were under foreign control, their owners transferred profits to unfriendly jurisdictions, including financing Ukrainian armed groups, did not invest money in infrastructure development, and evaded paying all taxes. Which enterprises are in question and whether similar lawsuits are still possible — in the Izvestia article.
Which enterprises have been regained by the state
Five strategic enterprises with a total asset value of 2.4 trillion rubles were nationalized over the past year at the request of the Prosecutor General's Office, Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov said at the final board meeting with the participation of the President of the Russian Federation. The property was turned in favor of the State by court decisions. Four of these five companies were under foreign control, he noted.
Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Igor Krasnov
According to the Prosecutor General, the owners of these enterprises gave instructions on the withdrawal of products and profits to unfriendly jurisdictions, did not invest money in infrastructure development, and did not fulfill social obligations to the team.
— They did not pay taxes in full, they spent the money withdrawn from circulation for their own needs, — Igor Krasnov noted. — In some cases, these funds were used to finance the Ukrainian formations fighting against us.
The Prosecutor General did not specify what kind of enterprises they were. According to Izvestia, we may be talking about the group of the crab kings of the Far East, Oleg Kan and Dmitry Dremlyuga, the Macfa pasta manufacturer, the group of plants of the Chelyabinsk Electrometallurgical Combine (CHEMK) and one of the largest grain producers and exporters Rodnye Polye.
Oleg Kan's assets worth 358 billion rubles were seized by the court at the request of prosecutors in March 2024. The lawsuit was about Far Eastern companies engaged in the extraction of crabs and fish, a strategic resource for the country. At the same time, according to the prosecutor's office, all these companies were affiliated with Kahn, although he himself has not been a Russian resident for a long time and lives abroad.
There were 17 defendants in the lawsuit, all of whom tried to challenge the seizure of assets in the Supreme Court, but it was denied.
A similar story happened with Kahn's partner Dmitry Dremlyuga — his companies were also engaged in fishing. Dremlyuga has also been living abroad in recent years, making illegal profits from business in Russia, according to prosecutors. The value of its assets seized by the state is estimated at 17.4 billion rubles. The Primorsky Krai Court made the decision on nationalization in May 2024.
From grain to alcohol
In February 2024, the Arbitration Court of the Sverdlovsk Region granted the claim of the supervisory authority for the seizure from the owners of assets of the Chelyabinsk Electrometallurgical Combine group of plants worth 105 billion rubles.
The defendants in the lawsuit were the Etalon company and two individuals, Lyudmila and Yuri Antipov. According to prosecutors, the Ural enterprise, which produces products for the military-industrial complex (MIC), was illegally privatized back in the 90s. Then this procedure was carried out, despite the fact that the federal government did not give permission for the transaction.
In court, the owners stated their position, according to which CHEMK is not an integral part of the defense industry, it only supplies ferroalloys to metallurgical plants, and they already send steel to defense plants. However, the court did not heed these arguments.
In May 2024, Makfa and 33 affiliated companies worth more than 46 billion rubles were nationalized. The decision was made by the Central District Court of Chelyabinsk on the claim of the Prosecutor General's Office, which pointed out the corrupt nature of the origin of the business.
According to the supervisory authority, the owners of Makfa, ex—State Duma deputy Vadim Belousov and ex-governor of the Chelyabinsk Region Mikhail Yurevich, received income illegally by combining public service and business.
In 2017, Yurevich and Belousov were accused of accepting bribes as part of a criminal group, after which they left Russia and are now wanted. Until the assets were seized, they continued to control business in Russia through Cypriot offshore companies and annually transferred 2 billion rubles abroad, according to the Prosecutor General's Office's lawsuit.
And in February 2024, the arbitration court of the Rostov Region transferred 100% of the assets of the grain producer, Rodnye Polye, to the ownership of the state. Among other things, it owns its own fleet of 11 naval vessels, railway rolling stock, a cargo terminal in the port of Azov, as well as over 200 other infrastructure facilities. The company's annual gross profit is estimated at 100 billion rubles. Her beneficiary, Peter Khodykin, in addition to Russian, has the citizenship of Saint Kitts and Nevis, the Prosecutor General's Office stated in its lawsuit.
Given that the company occupies about 20% of the grain transshipment market, Khodykin, as a foreign resident, needed to obtain a special government permit to carry out relevant activities.
In addition, in February 2024, the court nationalized the property of Russia's largest car dealer Rolf (60 billion rubles), and in July of the same year, the alcohol holdings Global Spirits (15 billion rubles) and SPI Group (2.8 billion rubles). Their former owners, Evgeny Chernyak and Yuri Shefler, who finance the Armed Forces of Ukraine, were recognized as extremists by administrative lawsuits from prosecutors.
Officials in the case
Speaking at the board, Igor Krasnov called on subordinates to "continue to force authorized bodies to effectively manage public property and prevent the use of private enterprises contrary to state interests." At the same time, he instructed prosecutors to use all mechanisms to protect bona fide business.
In particular, the Prosecutor General noted that when the relevant departments agreed on audit plans for the current year, three quarters of the applications were rejected. In general, since the beginning of the pandemic, the verification burden on businesses has decreased by 12 times.
According to him, over the past year, according to statements by prosecutors, individual officials also lost illegally acquired property — the total amount seized from them amounted to 504 billion rubles (in 2023 — 400 billion rubles). Based on the materials of the supervisory inspections, over 3,000 criminal cases have been initiated.
How not to get sued
The practice of the Prosecutor General's Office filing lawsuits for the recovery of property in favor of the state has become very common in recent years, said Mikhail Chugunov, an adviser to the YUST law firm.
He conditionally divided these lawsuits into several groups — "anti-privatization" (when the prosecutor's office refers to violations of the law on property privatization), "anti-corruption" (when it comes to violations of anti-corruption legislation) and "anti-extremist" (if the property of an extremist association is used for state revenue).
— Of course, the growing practice of property seizure raises questions and concerns among business representatives, especially regarding the statute of limitations when it comes to circumstances that took place 20-30 years ago, — said the lawyer. — At the same time, certain approaches of courts in the application of relevant norms are gradually being developed. Only the Constitutional Court has recently addressed the issue of lawsuits by the Prosecutor's Office for the recovery of property several times.
The court satisfies the demands of the prosecutor's office very often, but not always. For example, at the end of last year, the Odintsovo District Court of the Moscow region refused to seize land from the prosecutor's office in the elite cottage village of Mayendorf Gardens in Barvikha, Mikhail Chugunov gave an example.
He believes that the practice of the prosecutor's office filing such claims cannot disappear either this year or in the foreseeable future, since violations that serve as the basis for claims are unlikely to disappear.
"But improving legislation and developing judicial practice will make it possible to develop more specific and understandable "rules of the game", which can reduce the number of lawsuits and transfer them from the category of emergency (as they are perceived by society today) to the category of ordinary, understandable and predictable practice," the lawyer said.
The tendency to seize assets of strategic enterprises reflects the government's policy of strengthening state control in key industries, agrees criminal defense lawyer Tatiana Pashkevich. This may be related to ensuring national security, protecting critical infrastructure, and responding to sanctions pressure.
— The probability of new lawsuits is high, — the lawyer believes. — The trend towards strengthening the public sector continues, while sanctions pressure and import substitution tasks increase attention to strategic assets.
In this regard, private owners should take into account that misuse of resources or questionable transactions can lead to loss of assets. Also at risk are enterprises that show signs of violations, including corruption and tax violations, enterprises with ineffective management and those that fall under the laws on countering unfriendly jurisdictions or have an opaque history of copyright ownership, the lawyer believes.
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