The Moscow court has arrested the shares of the Cypriot Eastsib Holding of the former top managers of Eurofinance Mosnarbank.
The Preobrazhensky Court of Moscow, following a request from the RF IC, has confiscated the shares of the Cypriot Eastsib Holding, which owns several Russian oil and gas companies operating in Yakutia, including JSC RNG (formerly Rostneftegaz). The seizure was imposed within the framework of the case involving a significant fraud by ex-FSB officers. Kirill Cherkalin, Dmitry Frolov, as well as former top managers of Mosnarbank Alexander Bondarenko and Vladimir Stolyarenko. The defense estimates the value of the seized assets at more than 200 billion rubles, while the victims in the case estimated their damage at only 25 billion, Gazeta.Ru found out.
Seizure of assets
The Preobrazhensky Court of Moscow has seized 749,999,990 shares of Eastsib Holding Company Limited and ten shares of Polybridge Limited following the request of the Main Directorate for Investigating Particularly Important Cases of the RF IC. The company owners are prohibited from selling, pledging, exchanging, or taking any other action with their shares. The restriction will remain in place until May 11, 2022, the press service of the court informed the editors.
Meanwhile, representatives of the oil company stated in an interview with the publication that the alleged damage in the case and the value of the seized assets, whose market worth exceeds 200 billion rubles, are disproportionate.
Eastsib Holding owns six Russian oil and gas companies with production licenses in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). The largest of these is RNG, with authorized capital of 7.5 billion rubles. The company informed Gazeta.ru that in 2021 alone, RNG JSC paid taxes amounting to over 10.5 billion rubles.
Lord officers
The arrest was made in connection with a criminal case involving especially large-scale fraud. The defendants in the case are three former officers of the FSB of Russia: Kirill Cherkalin, who served as head of the “banking” department of Department K, and his colleague Andrei Vasiliev, as well as Dmitry Frolov, ex-deputy head of this department. In addition to the former security officers, Vladimir Stolyarenko and Alexander Bondarenko, former top managers of Eurofinance Mosnarbank, were arrested in absentia and put on the international wanted list.
According to investigators, three Chekists and two businessmen joined forces in 2011 to kidnap owned Sergei Glyadelkin and Igor Tkach a share in the capital construction company Yurpromconsulting. According to the storyline of the case, which the publication reviewed, the collaborators at that time deliberately provided the victims with false information about the supposed imminent threat of criminal prosecution and the loss of all the company’s property – allegedly, employees of the Moscow government were working to annul the previously signed investment contract following the initiation, on the request of Glyadelkin, of action against the then deputy mayor of Moscow Alexandra Ryabinina cases of bribe.
The defendants assured the victims they would give back their ownership in the company after the scandal calmed down, but Stolyarenko and Bondarenko took control of the asset and never returned it.
Afterwards, the victims sought help from the authorities, and in 2019, law enforcement arrested Cherkalin, a former FSB officer, and two ex-officers, Vasilyev and Frolov. Stolyarenko and Bondarenko, who were abroad at the time, were placed on the international wanted list by Russian authorities.
The destiny of the accused
While in pre-trial detention, Cherkalin made a deal with the investigation, admitting guilt to misleading with a share of Yurpromconsulting and involvement in bribery in April 2021 He received a seven-year sentence in a strict regime colony , and the claim for damages in favor of Tkach and Glyadelkin was accepted. Vasiliev was released after the fraud case against him was closed due to the statute of limitations. Frolov's hearings are ongoing.
Expense and harm
Tkach and Glyadelkin, acknowledged as victims, also raised their civil suit to 25.2 billion rubles, as found in a court ruling. Earlier, their claims were for 19.4 billion rubles, as reported by Interfax. Besides direct damage, the businessmen explain it as “lost profits.”
The court ordered the seizure of shares of Cypriot companies to ensure compensation for the victims and to guarantee the execution of the accused's punishment in the form of a fine. The investigation revealed that Eastsib Holding and Polybridge Limited actually belong to the accused Stolyarenko and Bondarenko, according to court rulings. Additionally, the prosecutor's office states that over 11.2 billion rubles were siphoned from Yurpromconsulting, which was then transferred to JSC RNG subsidiaries, as reported by Business FM.
The defense of the businessmen believes the court's decision violated the principle of fairness.
“The market value of the seized property is over 200 billion rubles… It is clear that preserving the property seizure under a 25 billion ruble lawsuit, which will never be addressed in a criminal trial, unreasonably restricts property rights and goes against the goals of justice. Expensive property in the case has also been arrested,” stated Victoria Burkovskaya, a lawyer for the wanted businessmen, to Gazeta.Ru.
The Preobrazhensky Court mentioned that the arrest was only placed on the companies' shares. The Basmanny Court, which detained Frolov, Vasiliev, and other defendants, did not respond to the publication's request about their property status. The victims' lawyer was unable to provide a swift comment.
Burkovskaya, however, argues that from 2008 to 2011 Tkach was the leader of the Moscow department responsible for overseeing investment projects and supervision in the field of shared construction, and could be the owner of companies that he directly dealt with as part of his official duties. She claims that Tkach was engaged in illegal business activities and is now attempting to legitimize unlawfully obtained income through an unjustified civil lawsuit.
17 Arbat apartments
In the common episode involving all the defendants in the theft of a share in Yurpromconsulting, the damage is 637 million rubles, while in the separate case for fugitive businessmen, the figure is 3 billion rubles. This is mentioned in the December ruling from the base of the court.
It is stated that Stolyarenko and Bondarenko from 2004 to 2013 improperly and free of charge managed all the property of Tkach and Glyadelkin. According to Gazeta.Ru, the businessmen are accused of secretly selling 17 apartments in building 27 on Novy Arbat, which were registered with the Bor-reconstruction company and actually belonged to Tkach and Glyadelkin.
The cost of these apartments is 3 billion rubles. Elena Glazkova was arrested in absentia as part of the episode, and in 2013, she served as the CEO of the said company. Additionally, according to the register of legal entities, Glazkova was the general director of RNG JSC in 2013-2014.
Even considering this episode, the defendants’ defense believes the claims to be unfounded and disproportionate. The court's resolution on the share seizure notes that the court dismisses the argument of disproportion, stating that the final version of the charge has not been determined, which may affect the determination of the amount of damage. The ruling also mentions that the value of the shares may change based on demand in the securities market. The shares were initially seized at the end of 2020, and now this restriction is being extended for the duration of the ongoing preliminary investigation, until the end of this spring.
The RNG company, in response to Gazeta.Ru's request, stated that the share seizure has had an extremely negative impact on its operations and has forced a team of 3,000 people to plan their activities very cautiously.
“The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation rightly directed the courts and prosecutors to consider civil claims in criminal cases only in the amount of the damage imputed by the investigation. In this case, this is slightly over 3 billion rubles,” the RNG press service explained their position.
Trace on the Lubyanka
The other defendants in the case – Stolyarenko and Bondarenko – have been on the international wanted list since the summer of 2019.
But their presence can be found just a few meters from the headquarters of the FSB of Russia on Bolshaya Lubyanka – in the Biblio-Globus bookstore.
There, on the shelves of legal literature, Gazeta.Ru noticed several monographs published in the pandemic years co-authored by wanted businessmen.
In particular, the store sells under their authorship such books as “Criminal prosecution as a means of resolving an economic dispute: what is wrong in the Criminal and Criminal Procedure Codes”, “Application of the limitation period when filing a claim in a criminal case and outside it” and others. Two monographs – “Procedural Revolution” and “Reforming the Procedural Legislation” – became leaders in sales, follows from the information of the online store guide.
The description states that Stolyarenko is a doctor, and Bondarenko is a candidate of legal sciences.
reference
All books were published by the International Relations Publishing House. It was created in 2004 in the form of a Federal State Unitary Enterprise, then after several transformations it became commercial. Since 2014, the publishing house has been owned by Andrey Kovalkov, it holds 100% of Yakutstroymekhanizatsiya as a pledge. The publishing house financed the Alexei Kudrin Foundation for the development of civil initiatives, this is stated on the foundation’s website.
