The Ulyanovsk court withdrew from the election a candidate for the Legislative Assembly, who could not get rid of foreign shares

The Ulyanovsk regional court on Monday canceled the registration for the elections to the regional legislative assembly of the former head of the regional department of Rosprirodnadzor Alexander Kaplina. The reason was the presence of “foreign financial instruments” – shares of foreign companies with which the candidate played on the stock exchange. Mr. Kaplin claims that he could not get rid of them because of the sanctions: the papers were blocked in the banking application. However, the election commission insists that he did not even notify the commission of their presence. Now the candidate withdrawn from the elections promises to reach the Constitutional Court.

On August 21, the Ulyanovsk Regional Court satisfied the claims of the district and regional election commissions, depriving Alexander Kaplin of the status of a candidate for deputies of the regional legislature due to the presence of foreign financial instruments. This decision has not yet entered into force.

Alexander Kaplin is a well-known ecologist, lawyer and social activist in Ulyanovsk. In 2005–2010, he was a member of the Ulyanovsk City Duma, and from 2011 to 2019, he headed the regional department of Rosprirodnadzor. Mr. Kaplin is running for the Ulyanovsk legislature from the New People party on the lists and in single-mandate constituency No. 16, where he is one of the main opponents of Vasily Gvozdev, deputy secretary of the regional branch of United Russia.

The District Electoral Commission filed a lawsuit to deregister candidate Kaplina to the regional court, and then a similar application was filed by the regional election committee. Earlier, the commission received a letter from the Central Election Commission with the data of the Central Bank on the presence at the time of registration of two candidates – Alexander Kaplina and Mikhail Vuiko (“Fair Russia – For Truth”) – foreign financial instruments. We are talking about shares of foreign companies that appeared as a result of playing on the stock exchange. As explained to “Kommersant” in the regional election committee, according to the federal law “On Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights”, by the time of filing documents for registration, candidates must “alienate foreign financial instruments.”

Both candidates were asked to voluntarily withdraw from the election. Mikhail Vuiko agreed, admitting his miscalculation, but Alexander Kaplin refused, stating that he “was unable to get rid of the assets” because, due to sanctions, “these shares were blocked – they cannot be sold, transferred, or disposed of by any in any way.” He also referred to a clause in the law, according to which, if it is impossible to get rid of foreign financial instruments due to circumstances beyond the control of the candidate, this cannot be the basis for deregistration. Similar explanations, according to him, are given in the decision of the plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of June 27. However, the Regional Electoral Committee decided that “only the court can determine the reasons that depend or do not depend on the candidate.”

In court, Mr. Kaplin additionally explained that he knew about the requirements of federal law and therefore sold eight shares in advance, which were visible in the personal account of a special brokerage application from Tinkoff Bank. “Despite the fact that they were also blocked, I managed to sell them on the over-the-counter market at a price two to four times lower than the market price,” Alexander Kaplin said. According to him, there were no other shares in his personal account at the time of filing documents for registration, and he himself found out about their presence only on August 3, when he was informed about this by the election commission. Then the candidate sent a claim to the Tinkoff support service, after which these shares became visible again, but remained blocked, and “no operations with them were possible.” At the same time, he also failed to obtain confirming information from Tinkoff about problems with the visibility of shares in his personal account, Mr. Kaplin explained.

The representative of the regional election commission, Ivan Gusev, explained to Kommersant that representatives of both election commissions insisted on deregistration of the candidate, “because this is a direct requirement of the law,” especially since Alexander Kaplin, when submitting documents to the election commission, “did not even declare the presence of these shares and wrote a statement that he does not own such shares. “And whether he had the opportunity to get rid of them – this is exactly what the court assesses,” added Mr. Gusev.

Mr. Kaplin told Kommersant that he would appeal against the decision of the regional court. According to him, if the appellate instance agrees with the regional court, then the story with the elections “will already be over” for him, but he intends to still apply to the Supreme Court, and then to the Constitutional Court, because “the legislator does not keep up with the changing situation.” This topic is not regulated in detail in federal legislation, and “these issues need to be resolved not for ourselves, but for other candidates and future companies,” summed up Alexander Kaplin.

Lawyer Lyudmila Moroz notes that if a ban on actions with foreign shares was imposed in connection with sanctions and there is information about this, then “no court is needed here – the regional election committee could check everything itself.” “The law gives a categorical instruction that it is impossible to deprive registration on this basis. If he did not report that there were shares, then the election commission could indicate that false information was provided. But this is not a basis for refusal, ”the lawyer emphasizes.

Sergey Titov, Ulyanovsk