Which of the businessmen was hiding from criminal prosecution outside of Russia

The founder of the investment fund Baring Vostok Michael Calvey and the operating partner of the company Philippe Delpal left Russia, informed Vedomosti source. They were given suspended sentences in August 2021. Lawyers for the businessmen confirmed that their clients were not in Russia. “Calvey plans to participate in the court session, but due to difficulties in obtaining a visa under the current conditions, it is difficult for him to come,” Calvey’s lawyer Timofey Gridnev said. Philippe Delpal’s defender made a similar statement.

The departure of businessmen took place after the Second Cassation Court of the Russian Federation canceled their preventive measure in the form of a ban on certain actions in early 2022. Before that, until the conviction in the criminal case came into force, they could not leave the house from 22.00 to 6.00, communicate with witnesses and visit the offices of the organizations involved in his case. Information about the absence of Calvi and Delpal in Russia appeared earlier, but was not officially confirmed.

In August 2021, Calvey received a five and a half year suspended sentence for embezzlement, and six of his colleagues were also given suspended sentences. The case against Calvey and other defendants was initiated in February 2019. Initially, they were accused of fraud (Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), but then the article was changed to embezzlement (Article 160 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). At the time of the initiation of the criminal case, the Calvey Baring Vostok fund owned a controlling stake in Vostochny Bank.

According to investigators, Calvey, as part of a criminal group, squandered 2.5 billion rubles. bank, agreeing to accept as compensation for a loan of 2.5 billion rubles. shares of the Luxembourg company IFTG, which, instead of the declared market value of more than 3 billion rubles, were much cheaper (Vedomosti previously wrote about the re-examination of the case, which valued the package at $4.4 million, or 260 million rubles). The borrower was the First Collection Bureau, also owned by Baring Vostok.

Baring Vostok, founded in 1994, is engaged in direct investments in Russia and the CIS countries. Since its inception, the fund has invested over $2.8 billion in 80 companies in Russia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.

At the end of December 2022, it became knownthat Baring Vostok plans to reorganize the business. It was planned that the main assets would be divided between two new management companies – Baring Private Equity and Vostok Investments. At the same time, Elena Ivashentseva, a senior partner of the fund, should become the chairman of the Vostok Investments holding. Ozon, Solopharm, SkyEng, VkusVill, Familia and others will come under its management.

Baring Private Equity funds, according to the reorganization plan, will own investments in such international companies as Kaspi.kz, Blablacar, Kolesa.Kz. Calvey said RBCthat “the decision to restructure the business and separate assets seems to be a logical step in the current conditions and reflects the interests of all parties.”

According to the current legislation, those who are sentenced to probation are not entitled to travel abroad before its expiration, says lawyer, adviser to BGP Litigation Vladimir Kolesin. According to the verdict of the court, they are obliged to appear in the bodies of the penitentiary inspection and report. If a person leaves the Russian Federation, most likely, it becomes impossible for him to fulfill this obligation, and the criminal-executive inspection, in case of violation, has the right to apply to the court to change the suspended sentence to a real one, the expert notes.

“At the same time, it should be noted that there are no organizational obstacles for the departure of conditionally convicted abroad at the state level. In fact, this issue is in the area of ​​responsibility of the probationer himself,” Kolesin told Vedomosti. The only exception is the case when the sentence imposed a material obligation on the person, and enforcement proceedings were initiated, after which the Federal Bailiff Service imposed a ban on the person’s departure.

If there were no such measures, then there are no obstacles to leaving, and the decision on whether a person can go abroad or not is made by the person himself, in fact, taking responsibility for violating the obligations imposed on him by the verdict, the lawyer emphasized.

If the court established restrictions in the form of the obligation of a conditionally convicted person to regularly report to the FSIN authority, which is entrusted with monitoring the execution of the sentence, and despite such restrictions, he nevertheless left the country, then he must be put on the wanted list, and then, on the proposal of the authority , exercising control over the execution of sentences of the Federal Penitentiary Service, the court will have to cancel the suspended sentence and replace it with a real term, said Alexey Dobrynin, managing partner of the Pen & Paper Bar Association.

In his opinion, Calvey’s departure from Russia will not affect the course of his case. “The position of the convict in the Court of Appeal can be represented by lawyers even without the presence of the convict, depending on the restrictions established by the court,” Dobrynin said.

The escape from Russia of Calvey and Delpal is not the first case of the departure of persecuted businessmen. So, in the summer of 2015, the former head and co-owner of International Industrial Bank LLC left the country Sergei Pugachev. At home, he was charged with misappropriation of property on an especially large scale (part 3 of article 33 and part 4 of article 160 of the Criminal Code). According to investigators, Pugachev in 2008-2009. stole over 28 billion rubles allocated by the Central Bank as unsecured loans. Initially, he went to the UK, from where he flew to France.

Former Chairman of the Board of Directors of OJSC National Bank Trust Ilya Yurov also left Russia after he was accused of withdrawing assets from the bank, which led to its reorganization (the investigation estimated the amount of withdrawn funds at 7.05 billion rubles, as well as $118.3 million). A criminal case was initiated against Yurov under Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Fraud committed on an especially large scale”). The businessman flew to the UK in 2015.

An unsuccessful attempt to avoid criminal prosecution in Russia in 2013 was made by the ex-owner of the Mirax Group construction company Sergei Polonsky. He was accused of embezzling funds from participants in the shared construction of apartment buildings in the Kutuzovskaya Milya residential complex and the Rublyovskaya Riviera residential complex. The businessman then left for Cambodia, from where he was extradited to Russia in the spring of 2015. On July 12, 2017, Polonsky was found guilty, he was sentenced to five years in prison. At the same time, the court ruled to release the businessman due to the expiration of the statute of limitations in his criminal case.

Co-founder and former co-owner of the Euroset mobile phone network Evgeny Chichvarkin (recognized as a foreign agent in the Russian Federation), who has been living in the UK since 2008, was held in Russia as an accused in cases of kidnapping and extortion (under part 3 of article 126 of the Criminal Code and part 3 of article 163 of the Criminal Code, respectively) in 2009. His and eight employees of Euroset were accused of kidnapping and extorting money from freight forwarder Andrey Vlaskin. The prosecution claimed that the company’s security officers suspected Vlaskin of stealing a batch of mobile phones and demanded compensation for the damage caused.

Chichvarkin was arrested in absentia by the Basmanny District Court of Moscow and put on the international wanted list. The defendants in the case who remained in Russia refused to plead guilty. The case was considered by a jury, whose board issued a verdict of not guilty. On December 1, 2010, the Moscow City Court announced an acquittal to the defendants. On January 24, 2011, the Investigative Committee stopped the criminal prosecution of Chichvarkin.