Russian businessmen will not wait for a mass amnesty from the West: the exclusion of Volozh from the lists received an explanation

The co-founder of Yandex took advantage of the “special” position

The European Union will lift sanctions against the founder of Yandex Arkady Volozh: he will be excluded from the list after March 15. We are talking about another targeted, strictly dosed solution. There will be no mass rehabilitation of Russian business representatives who once received a black mark from the West. The motives for the current step are generally clear: Volozh, whose fortune Forbes estimates at $1.1 billion, has lost his “bad guy” status in the eyes of European officials.

According to Reuters, “legal arguments in court against Volozh have weakened given the proposed complete divestment of assets.” Let us recall that in February, the board of directors of the parent company of the Yandex group, Yandex NV, approved the sale of the Russian business to a consortium of private investors. The share capital of Yandex NV was divided between the Volozh family trust (8.5%) and other company employees (3.2%), the remaining 87.6% are in free float.

Volozh came under European sanctions on June 3, 2022. On the same day, he announced his intention to leave the position of CEO of the Yandex group, leave the board of directors and leave leadership positions in international subsidiaries. In August 2023, the businessman said: “There were many reasons why I had to remain silent. I am against war.” Volozh also recalled that he has friends and relatives in Ukraine, and that since 2014 he has been living in Israel. On his official website, Volozh describes himself as an Israeli IT entrepreneur, computer scientist, investor and philanthropist, originally from Kazakhstan. There is no mention of tens of years of life in Moscow.

In December, the entrepreneur appealed to the European Court of General Jurisdiction in Luxembourg. As his lawyer William July insisted at the hearing, this is not about “another businessman whose fortune was built on the wave of privatization and government contracts.” According to the lawyer, Volozh took a “very bold step” when he condemned the SVO in August, and now lives “under the constant threat of retribution” from Moscow. He was not close to President Vladimir Putin, and built his capital on government contracts. And today Volozh does not have legal ownership rights or any control over the Yandex company, noted Julie, who called for the sanctions against his client to be lifted due to the totality of the circumstances.

Earlier, in September 2023, the European Union excluded from the sanctions list (which it extends and reviews every six months) the head of the Unified Social Security group Grigory Berezkin, the ex-head of Ozon Alexander Shulgin and the co-owner of Northgas, now a private investor Farhad Akhmedov.

“There is no need to say that there is a massive campaign to lift individual sanctions imposed after February 2022,” says Nikita Maslennikov, a leading expert at the Center for Political Technologies. – To date, the EU decision has affected only four people, including Volozh. The arguments of European officials are not completely transparent, but the general principle is clear: the factors that once guided the sanctions have changed dramatically, or rather, disappeared. Their positions in court became openly vulnerable – it was pointless to resist further, to leave Berezkin, Shulgin and Akhmedov and Volozh under sanctions. These four were initially included on the list largely because they were considered to be members of President Putin’s inner circle. Which is not true.”

But two circumstances were decisive for the court: the sale of the business and resignation from leadership positions. As for Volozh specifically, the “divorce process” between the Russian “Yandex” and the Dutch Yandex NV played in his favor. It lasted a long time, as much as 18 months, but in the end the businessman finally parted with his brainchild. As Maslennikov believes, Volozh could also have been removed from sanctions because of his exceptional, serious value for the West: the man has retained quite a lot of startups outside of Russia, for example, in Finland. This technological potential is in international demand, and it would be a sin not to use it. Moreover, initially it was outside Russian jurisdiction, where it continues to remain.

That is, Maslennikov summarizes, a special attitude has developed towards Volozh. Not everyone is so lucky. In particular, in September 2023, the court rejected the claims of Russian billionaires Dmitry Pumpyansky, Gennady Timchenko, Mikhail Gutseriev and Tigran Khudaverdyan, who tried to challenge the sanctions. At the same time, the process of announcing sanctions and their lifting was and remains a thing in itself.

Let us recall that the first group of Russian “oligarchs” (the term from the official EU verdict) was persecuted on February 28, 2022. On that day, Brussels added 26 Russian citizens to the sanctions list, including Alfa Group co-owners Mikhail Fridman and Peter Aven, who lived permanently in London. Restrictive measures prohibit European companies and banks from any economic activity with the sanctioned person, as well as with the businesses belonging to him. No funds or resources should be provided to him, directly or indirectly.