On April 7, the Moscow Arbitration Court satisfied the claim of PJSC Far Eastern Shipping Company (FESCO) against Ziyavudin Magomedov and a number of offshore companies for 80.1 billion rubles and 13.8 million dollars.
The lawsuit was filed in October 2022, Interfax reports. The defendants were Magomedov, three Cypriot companies Maple Ridge Ltd, Envartia Consulting Ltd and Smartilicious Consulting Ltd, as well as Felix LP, registered in the Cayman Islands, and SGS Universal Investment Holdings Ltd (British Virgin Islands).
As explained in the FESCO group, which includes FESCO, “the decision to file a claim was made upon completion of a two-year financial audit of the company, which was carried out according to instructions from the board of directors... Based on the results of the analysis, a number of debts were identified that were formed in the interests of the group of companies and the beneficiaries who own them.” .
Ziyavudin Magomedov owns 32.5% of the shares of FESCO. “The shareholders took out loans from the company to repay their debt for the acquisition of shares of PJSC FESCO,” FESCO reported. -- Since these debt obligations are not currently being serviced, management, taking into account the interests of all shareholders, decided to recover funds through the court. Otherwise, the debt burden could significantly worsen the financial and operational performance of FESCO.”
Two months after the filing of the lawsuit, the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation tried to intervene in the case, citing its claim against the Magomedov brothers regarding the conversion of shares of the FESCO group into state income. However, both the FESCO and the representative of Ziyavudin Magomedov objected to this, stating that these cases “are not interrelated, the subjects of the claim are different.” The court took their side and did not allow the Prosecutor General's Office to participate in the arbitration process.
As a result, the court recovered from the defendants in favor of the Far Eastern Shipping Company 80.113 billion rubles and $13,783 in damages. Only one defendant - Cypriot Felix - escaped the claims. According to the company's lawyer, Felix is not a direct shareholder, although he indirectly owns about 17% of FESCO shares. The lawyer refused to disclose the beneficiary.
Businessman Ziyavudin Magomedov, whose fortune before his arrest was estimated at $1.4 billion, was sentenced last December to 19 years of maximum security for creating an organized criminal community and embezzling 11 billion rubles. His brother, ex-senator from the Smolensk region, co-owner of the Summa group, Magomed Magomedov, received 18 years. The court confiscated all the property of the oligarchs and deprived them of state awards. Four more defendants in the case received sentences ranging from 7 to 12 years. The defendants called the charges absurd and denied their guilt.
There are different versions regarding the true reasons for the criminal prosecution. Among them is a conflict with the management of the state company Transneft over a stake in the Novorossiysk port. The Dozhd TV channel suggested that the case could have been caused by the revenge of billionaire Suleiman Kerimov: the brothers allegedly leaked incriminating evidence about him to the French intelligence services. Novaya Gazeta linked the criminal prosecution to an attempt by businessmen to enter politics in Dagestan without the consent of the Kremlin. Most experts agree that the harsh reprisal against the Magomedovs was intended to demonstrate to Russian entrepreneurs how dangerous it is not to comply with agreements with the authorities.
