No person without sanctions – Newspaper Kommersant No. 211 (7412) dated 11/15/2022
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The US Treasury has included in the sanctions list a number of companies that are associated with the family and alleged partners of Suleiman Kerimov. In particular, the sanctions affected Murat Aliyev and his Bonum Capital fund, which, however, owns only minority stakes in various companies. The list also includes Swiss companies through which Phosagro is controlled by Andrey Guryev and his family, and which redomiciliated in April. According to lawyers, although the companies that control PhosAgro are not directly related to the United States, the imposition of sanctions could significantly complicate their operations, in particular, the payment of dividends.
The US Treasury contributed to SDN list new faces and companies associated with Senator Suleiman Kerimov. The list includes family members and alleged partners of the businessman, who was included in the SDN-List back in 2018, as well as their assets. Thus, French real estate companies owned by the Senator’s daughter Gulnara Kerimova, the Maltese airline Emperor Aviation Ltd, which, as explained in the OFAC report, “coordinated luxury flights for the immediate family members” of Suleiman Kerimov, and a number of aircraft manufactured Bombardier, Cessna and Gulfstream.
The SDN list also includes Murat Aliyev, the Bonum Capital fund and related structures. Mr Aliyev was a former top manager of Suleiman Kerimov’s Nafta-Moskva, but Bonum has always denied any connection to the senator.
Bonum owns real estate assets and minority stakes in a number of companies. Thus, the fund owns 13% of the shares of the timber industry Segezha Group, which is part of AFK Sistema. First, Bonum bought a stake in Segezha’s IPO, and later acquired shares in a timber holding from AFK Sistema for $150 million (see “Kommersant” dated October 11, 2021). Segezha declined to comment. The fund also owned 16.03% of PJSC Koks, but in January withdrew from the company’s capital by selling a stake to a subsidiary of Koks and its main shareholder Evgeny Zubitsky.
In 2019, Bonum became the owner of the Tsvetnoy shopping center with a total area of 36.5 thousand square meters. m in the center of Moscow, having bought from Sberbank the right to claim for 4.2 billion rubles. to the ex-owner of the object VEB.RF. Also, according to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, as of November 14, Bonum Investments controlled RB-Estate LLC (also included in the SDN-List), which is listed as the management company of the Na Zhukova business center with an area of 5.7 thousand square meters. m in Dzerzhinsky near Moscow. In addition, Bonum Investments owns 50% of Pascal Medical LLC, which produces medical syringes and needles at a plant in Dubna. Bonum did not respond to Kommersant’s request.
Other new members of the SDN list include companies through which former head of PhosAgro Andrey Guryev (gone since CEO in March) and members of his family control a total 43.66% stake in the fertilizer producer. We are talking about the Swiss Adorabella AG and the Kaliningrad MCOOO Adorabella, as well as the Swiss Chlodwig Enterprises AG and the MCOOO Chlodwig Enterprises.
The shares of Chlodwig Enterprises Limited and Adorabella Limited, PhosAgro reported back in 2020, were transferred to trusts, the economic beneficiaries of which are Andrey Guryev and his family members. These companies were re-registered under Russian jurisdiction in April 2022, becoming residents of a special administrative region on Oktyabrsky Island in the Kaliningrad Region. Phosagro declined to comment, and representatives of Mr. Guryev did not give them either.
Meanwhile, PhosAgro’s board of directors on November 7 recommended paying interim dividends for the nine months of 2021 in the amount of 41.2 billion rubles. (318 rubles for paper).
In September, Phosagro decided to pay out dividends for 2021 and interim dividends for the first half of 2022 for a total of RUB 101 billion.
Pen & Paper senior partner Anton Imennov notes that even those subjects to which they are not directly subject to sanctions are trying to comply with the US sanctions, this is due to the presence of a mechanism of secondary sanctions. A vivid example is the refusal of Turkish banks to cooperate with the National Payment Card System after the United States only hinted at the possibility of sanctions for working with the Mir payment system.
In this regard, even if the companies of Cyprus and Switzerland are not connected in any way with the United States and there are no obstacles to the continued payment of dividends to Cypriots on shares of sanctioned Swiss companies, “it is very likely that persons involved in this activity will refuse to work with the sanctioned asset,” says Mr Namenov. Also, the lawyer clarifies, it should be borne in mind that sanctions from the EU and Switzerland have been imposed on Mr. Guryev himself. Therefore, he explains, any action by Cypriot and Swiss companies that will directly or indirectly result in the provision of assets to a sanctioned person is incompatible with their obligations under EU and Swiss blocking sanctions.
The very fact of redomiciliation to Russia, according to Anton Imnov, “does not greatly reduce the negative effect of sanctions while maintaining ties with Western jurisdictions,” since “Western contractors prefer not to enter into relations with those who are considered toxic due to sanctions.”
“Thus, the only people who can afford to act without regard to Western sanctions are Russian structures that have no links to Western jurisdictions. This also does not eliminate the risk of falling under sanctions for them, but the effect of restrictions is much less noticeable than for those who operate in Western markets,” summarizes Mr. Imenov.
Most of the largest Russian businessmen fell under some kind of sanctions in 2022. So, from the top ten list of the richest Russians as of 2021, according to Forbes, only Telegram founder Pavel Durov is not currently under sanctions. Basically, Russian businessmen are trying to minimize the effect of sanctions by reducing their shares in companies below the control and moving away from operational management so that restrictive measures do not automatically apply to key businesses.
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