The business ombudsman did not defend himself against the prosecutor’s office

As it became known to Kommersant, the court, at the suit of the Prosecutor General’s Office, turned the shares of JSC “Commercial Center, Transport and Forest” (KCTL) into state income – the stevedoring company of the business ombudsman for St. Petersburg Alexander Abrosimov, annually processing, according to its own reporting, 370 thousand tons of cargo. The supervision proved in court that the assets of Severnaya Verf, a defense enterprise engaged in the construction, repair and modernization of ships, including the Navy, were illegally transferred to it. Representatives of the defendants argue that the claims against them are unfounded, and the decision will be appealed.

The Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region considered the claim (.pdf) Deputy Prosecutor General Igor Tkachev, based on the results of an audit of the procedure for the privatization of the state enterprise Severnaya Verf, which was carried out back in the 90s. The plant itself was established in 1912 and builds and repairs combat surface ships. Now the enterprise, which is part of the United Shipbuilding Corporation, is building six Project 22350 frigates, which are at different stages of readiness.

As follows from the materials of the case, the then head of the transport department of Severnaya Verf JSC Alexander Abrosimov, together with 19 employees of this structural unit, established JSC KCTL on February 18, 1994. The authorized capital of the company in the amount of 400 thousand non-denominated rubles was divided into 400 shares, which the participants distributed among themselves. Then the number of securities was increased to 66,861 pieces.

In the period from May 1994 to May 1995, Alexander Abrosimov was already the commercial director of Severnaya Verf JSC and at the same time the general director of KCTL, “that is, he had a personal interest in the implementation of the illegal plan,” the supervision believes.

In November 1994, the general director of the shipyard, Yuri Bokov, concluded an agreement with JSC KCTL on the transfer of property to him in the amount of 8 billion 461 million 311 thousand non-denominated rubles. In exchange, Severnaya Verf was to receive 66,461 KCTL shares.

The remaining 400 shares were distributed among the founders of the company, who, according to the plaintiff, “acted in bad faith” and knew about the illegal acquisition of the shipyard’s property. Moreover, the shares received by Severnaya Verf under the general agreement with KTsTL did not become the property of the Russian Federation, which “made a decisive contribution to the creation and capitalization of this company.” They were transferred to third parties, including employees of Severnaya Verf, JSC SV-Invest (a company spun off from the shipyard) and KCTL, who disposed of the securities at their own discretion.

As a result, “the cumulative, consistent, interconnected, phased and purposeful commission of these illegal actions led to irreversible consequences that violate the rights and legitimate interests of the Russian Federation.”

The assets of the plant were transferred to a third-party organization – KCTL, and the state’s share in the authorized capital of the shipyard was reduced from 60% to 46%. All this eventually led to the bankruptcy of the defense enterprise, which then had to be restored.

According to the conclusion of St. Petersburg State University, issued in January 2023, it was the reform of the organizational structure of the shipyard by separating from it inextricably technologically interconnected separate structural units that was one of the main factors that caused it serious problems.

After the bankruptcy of the shipyard, its former general director, Mr. Bokov, got a job at KTsTL, which, according to the plaintiffs, “indicated his personal interest in illegal enrichment” at the expense of the property of JSC Severnaya Verf, owned by the Russian Federation. In turn, Alexander Abrosimov personally and through affiliated foreign companies and members of his family in the period from 1994 to 2022 acquired 64,060 shares (95.8%) of KCTL, which were subject to transfer to the ownership of Russia.

The defendants in court referred to the expiration of the limitation period, and in addition, insisted that if the claim was satisfied, the claim should be directed to the property of the plant transferred to KCTL, and not to the shares of the company.

The court, making a decision on the transfer of 100% of the KCTL shares to the state, said that this decision was due to the fact that the property of this organization was completely formed at the expense of the assets of Severnaya Verf, created on the basis of a state-owned enterprise.

Representatives of the defendants told Kommersant that they would appeal against the decision of the arbitration as illegal and unreasonable. They drew attention to the fact that the project for the reorganization of Severnaya Verf with the sale of part of the assets was approved in 1993–1994 by the State Property Committee, which was headed by Anatoly Chubais and Albert Kokh. True, the case now says that the unnamed leaders of the committee “clearly acted in excess of their authority and contrary to the rights and legitimate interests of the Russian Federation.”

One way or another, the representatives of the defendants note, JSC KCTL received assets not related to the production and repair of warships: berths and warehouses used for the transport and storage of building materials, including sand. “Corvettes simply have nowhere to turn around,” the interlocutor of Kommersant noted. According to him, the shipyard and KCTL were checked by prosecutors, and then by the State Duma in the 1990s and 2000s, but then there were no questions about privatization.

In any case, the representatives of the defendants note, the main victims in this whole story were entrepreneurs who bought out the state-owned stake in KCTL in 2012 (they were denied a refund of more than 100 million rubles in arbitration), as well as workers of enterprises or their heirs, who acted as co-respondents under prosecutor’s claim. Of the 200 people who owned securities, almost half have already died. The rest, if the shares are converted into state revenue, will not receive about 200-500 thousand rubles for their securities.

Meanwhile, the state, together with the company’s shares, should gain control over a large sea terminal, which, as stated on the KCTL website, annually handles more than 370,000 tons of various cargoes, including dangerous ones. The company has 4 berths, 7 km of railway tracks, 65 thousand sq. m open and 25 thousand square meters. m of covered storage facilities, as well as 3.5 thousand square meters. m of office space and a variety of different equipment.

Nikolai Sergeev