The US Department of Justice and American regulators are checking Freedom Holding – Kommersant

The Department of Justice and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are investigating Freedom Holding, a Kazakhstan-registered and NASDAQ-listed financial technology company. As became known CNBCthe investigation concerns possible violations of several regulations, insider trading in shares and the offshore unit’s connections to sanctioned individuals.

Freedom Holding, headquartered in Almaty (Kazakhstan) and with a market capitalization of about $5 billion, is controlled by 35-year-old Kazakh billionaire Timur Turlov, who was a Russian citizen until 2022. As follows from documents reviewed by CNBC, the SEC’s regional office in Boston has been investigating Freedom Holding for several months. The Massachusetts State Attorney’s Office is conducting a preliminary investigation into the company.

As CNBC notes, such inspections are often carried out after evidence of possible violations of the law has been identified. However, such investigations can drag on for years, and criminal charges are not necessarily brought upon their completion.

Along with internal controls and offshore operations, the SEC and prosecutors are scrutinizing Timur Turlov’s claims that Freedom Holding can provide its mostly Russian clients with access to lucrative U.S. initial public offerings, according to CNBC sources.

According to CNBC sources, Timur Turlov is aware of ongoing investigations into his company. The businessman himself did not respond to CNBC’s request. However, in an interview published yesterday with a Kazakh publication “Italics” Timur Turlov noted that last summer “about all the regulators in the world came to them.” Freedom Holding shares on the NASDAQ exchange reacted to the CNBC publication with a fall of 9.3%.

Alena Miklashevskaya