Power, control and ownership: offshore structures under attack in recent commercial cases. Read More
Category: News
The Kremlin’s Western Lawyers
Russia is increasingly turning to armies of legal professionals to press its interests and bully its detractors in the West. The experience of Sergei Pugachev is a case in point. Read More
Le Nouvel Observateur: Khodorkovsky, Pugachev… Putin owes billions to the oligarchs
Jean-Baptiste Naudet, the French journalist in charge of the international department at L’Obs, writes:
In Moscow, Tsar Putin has the power to make and unmake fortunes at will. Certain oligarchs, however, are deciding they won’t let him get away with it. Living abroad in self-imposed exile, they fight for, and sometimes win tens of billions in reparations.
French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur published an article exploring the means of which a corrupt Russian state, facing years of economic decline and most recently, economic sanctions, uses to commandeer and extract the fortunes of its most successful entrepreneurs.
PRESS RELEASE: Official Statement by Sergei Pugachev’s Press Office
November 20, 2015 – In response to recent publications in the Russian media reporting that the Russian law enforcement agencies have involved Interpol in their quest to establish Sergei Pugachev’s whereabouts, the Press Office states the following:
Sergei Pugachev, a citizen of the Republic of France, has been living in France with his family since the beginning of the 90s, and since 2010 Mr. Pugachev is living in France on permanent basis.
Mr. Pugachev renounced his Russian citizenship in 2012 in connection with the expropriation of his assets in Russia. At the end of 2014 the Interpol Russian Bureau placed Mr. Pugachev’s name on its wanted list. In 2015 Mr. Pugachev’s name was removed from the list following the appeal filed by Mr. Pugachev’s French lawyers to the Interpol Central Bureau. Today Mr. Pugachev’s movements around the world are not restricted.
Sergei Pugachev and his lawyers believe that the allegations by the Russian authorities targeting Mr. Pugachev are politically motivated and judicially groundless. The legal team is awaiting action proceedings at the International Arbitration Court in the Hague in regards to Mr. Pugachev’s $12 billion compensation claim against the Russian Federation.
Sergei Pugachev is being represented by one of the world’s biggest American law firms, King & Spalding LLP. At the moment legal procedural steps are being taken to obtain interim measures in the form of seizures of the Russian Federation’s property in various jurisdictions.
Sergei Pugachev’s Press Office
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Sergei Pugachev on Putin’s control of the Russian media in the latest biographical read on Russia’s President
A recently published book entitled “The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin” written by a journalist Steven Lee Myers, has been this week’s The New York Times’ Editors Choice, and is widely referred to as the “most informative and extensive so far in English”.
The author, quoting Sergei Pugachev from an interview conducted in 2014, wrote the following in regards to the 2001 seizure of the television channel NTV by the Russian State:
“…After 11 day occupation by the channel’s journalists, they gave up and new management took over. Many at home and abroad registered protest, to no avail…Putin from the start understood the importance of television to the Kremlin’s authority – of it’s ability to shape not only his image, but the reality of Russia itself…[Putin] considered the state networks a ‘natural resource’ as precious as oil or gas. “He understands that the basis of power in Russia is not the army, not the police, it’s the television.””
Sergei Pugachev in the big read of the French magazine Paris Match
A journalist for Paris Match, Francois de Labarre, interviewed Sergei Pugachev at his house in South of France, following the Arbitration claim launch against the Russian Federation.
The reaction of the Russian Parliament following Sergei Pugachev’s international arbitration claim launch
A testament of the potential of the French businessman Sergei Pugachev’s international arbitration claim launch amounting to $12 billion appeared to be the rapidly approved retaliatory bill proposal “On jurisdictional immunity of a foreign state and the property of a foreign state in the Russian Federation.”
The Russian newspaper ‘Novye Vedomosti’ [Translated ‘New Vedomosti’] reported that the prospect of the recovery of $12 billion from the Russian Federation on behalf of Pugachev’s claim award, and interim measures against the Russian Federation expressed in the arrest of the Russian assets in different jurisdictions, noticeably alarmed Russian parliamentarians. The lawmakers hastily approved the new bill proposal which states that the immunity of the foreign country on the territory of the Russian Federation could be restricted if Russia cannot fully exercise equal immunity on the territory of the foreign country in question. In other words, Russia would be able to arrest the assets of foreign countries located within its territory in response to a similar action in respect of its assets.
Notably, the bill proposal was approved just a couple of days after Pugachev filed a claim that is likely to be heard in the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, demanding to recover compensation from Russia amounting to $12 billion per expropriated assets in real estate development, shipbuilding, and the mining industry. Pugachev also stated: “We have spent a year to prepare these actions. The claim is about to be made in different jurisdictions. This is a standard law practice, and Russia’s assets will be frozen even before the court’s decision.”
Pugachev could win the arbitration case against Russia due to deterioration of foreign relations
The article published by the Russian newspaper ‘Obschaya Gazeta’ [translated: General Newspaper] refers to the recent comment of the president of the Moscow Court of Arbitration Alexey Kravstsov saying that Pugachev stands a good chance to win his $12 billion compensation claim against Russia. Kravtsov stated that “the decision could be handed down as early as in six months”, and that “the court will hear the case though the prism of bilateral relations”. In fact, Pugachev’s notice of arbitration mentions violations of acting ‘Agreement between the Government of the USSR and the Government of the French Republic on the mutual promotion and mutual protection of investments’ by the Russian Federation.
The Russian experts unanimously agreed that not only presented objective evidence of the expropriation of Pugachev’s assets will play a favorable role in court, but also the deteriorating international political situation. Alexandr Shatilov, political scientist and the Dean of the Faculty of Sociology of the Russian Government’s Political Finance University stated that the international relations between Russia and the West “sharply deteriorated” after the annexation of Crimea.
Last month, in an interview with the Reuters, Sergei Pugachev stated that following the launch of the international arbitration claim, the next step is the implementation of interim measures against the Russian Federation, namely, arrest of Russia’s assets abroad. “We have spent a year to prepare these actions. The claim is about to be made in different jurisdictions. This is a standard law practice, and Russia’s assets will be frozen even before the court’s decision”, said Pugachev. Alexandr Shatilov agrees with Pugachev’s statement: “the decision of the arrest of Russia’s assets could be made outside of court”.
Moscow Chief Arbitrator: Pugachev’s arbitration claim could be awarded as early as within six months
The president of the Moscow Court of Arbitration, and a member of the Expert Council of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, Alexey Kravtsov, stated in an interview with the Russian newspaper ‘Argumenty i Facty’ [translated: Arguments and Facts] that Sergei Pugachev stands a good chance to win his $12 billion compensation claim against the Russian Federation.
Kravtsov highlighted that “the decision could be handed down in six months”. He also noted that the court may hear the case “though the prism of bilateral relations”:
“Any arbitral court belongs to its founders, in this case – to the Chamber of Commerce of the Netherlands, which, in turn, belongs to the state”.
Pugachev for Reuters: ”Putin is a hostage of his entourage”
The Reuters London bureau chief, and former Chief Political Correspondent for Reuters Moscow, Guy Faulconbridge, exclusively interviewed Sergei Pugachev on September 22, following the $12 billion International Arbitration Claim launch against the Russian Federation (read the immediate Reuters article here, watch Arbitration Claim launch Press Conference here).
Today, coinciding with the Russian President’s birthday, Reuters published an insightful piece, expanding on the original article:
“For Pugachev, the keys to the puzzle are Putin’s perceptions of his own personal safety, finding a successor and the clan battles over the spoils of a former superpower. “Until he finds a path to an arrangement which secures his safety, he will remain in power,” Pugachev said. “He no longer has confidence in his closest circle and if I were in his place I would not trust them either: What they say to his face and what they say when he is not there is completely different.”
Read the article in full here