Under the wing of the plenipotentiary: why the head of Dobroflot Efremov gets away with everything
Having barely recovered from scandals with smuggling and alleged cartel collusion, Efremov began to seek “special” treatment for his business. Deputy Prime Minister for the Far East Yuri Trutnev can help him with this.
The Dobroflot fishing company of Alexandra Efremov sent an appeal to the Government of the Russian Federation with a request to change the conditions for subsidizing cargo transportation along the Northern Sea Route (NSR). Efremov wants refrigerated ship operators to receive money from the budget, covering part of the costs, whereas today such a regime applies only to Rosatom.
The development of the NSR is a strategic task set by the President. However, in any case, only responsible businesses can count on such support. While Mr. Efremov’s Dobroflot almost regularly appears in a variety of scandals, including constant disputes with state regulators, courts and even criminal history.
GC “Dobroflot” unites various enterprises of the fishing industry, including JSC “Fishing Collective Farm “New World”, JSC “Yuzhmorrybflot”, LLC “Livadia Repair and Shipbuilding Plant” and LLC “Primrybflot”. Annually produces 170 million cans of canned fish – this one of the largest manufacturers of this product in the country.The company has 21 units of its own fleet, including 15 fishing vessels, 3 fish processing plants, 3 refrigerated transport vessels.
Petitioner with a fishy smell
However, a huge market share and good profits are apparently not enough for Alexander Efremov: now he is seeking budget support for transportation along the NSR. At the same time, he generally likes to contact the Government and other authorities with requests to support his business or protect him in conflict situations.
Dobroflot and Efremov have more than enough of them. You can remember how in 2021 he sought the support of the Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy to the Far East Yuri Trutnev in a dispute with Rosselkhoznadzor. The latter limited the export of products from the Zaliv Vostoka floating plant, as well as the Yuzhmorybbflot plant, to China. Both companies are part of the Dobroflot Group of Companies.
This was done based on the results of an inspection – violations were found in the activities of both enterprises, which especially worried the Chinese importers of Efremov’s products. And this is not the first time that Efremov has conflicted with regulators and asked for support from Trutnev and everyone he could.
Alexander Efremov (far right) regularly tries to “beg” something from the authorities. Photo: https://primamedia.ru/news/940519/
Efremov had much more serious problems a year before. In 2020, several criminal cases were initiated against employees of his Civil Code on charges of fish smuggling and evasion of customs duties. All this was accompanied by large-scale searches in the Dobroflot office, RIA Novosti reported.
It was established that in 2015, two large shipments of Pacific saury were imported to the port of Nakhodka to ZAO Yuzhmorrybflot. Raw saury was obtained by foreign sea vessels, transshipped to the Vsevolod Sibirtsev floating plant, where it was partially gutted and frozen.
The imported products were declared to the Nakhodka customs by Yuzhmorrybflot CJSC as a product of the Eurasian Economic Union, manufactured at a floating plant, and, therefore, not subject to customs duties. That is, it seems that Dobroflot itself could have previously tried to “lighten” its business burden in such a cunning way. And now he’s asking for money directly from the treasury.
In the case of the initiation of cases, Efremov almost instantly wrote a letter on social networks addressed to the same plenipotentiary representative Yuri Trutnev. He noticed and ordered to study the circumstances of the inspections. Apparently, the situation was simply hushed up. And why does Trutnev need this if he is “not interested”?
And this is not the first criminal case related to Dobroflot. Back in 2016, Nakhodka customs initiated proceedings on the facts of smuggling and tax evasion when importing Pacific saury. Then the estimated amount of damage was more than 11 million rubles. However, in 2017, the case was unexpectedly dropped due to the nature of the crime, which puzzled customs officials a lot.
In 2020, the owner of Dobroflot tried to shift responsibility for the duty-free import of foreign saury products to customs, but was defeated in the courts. And he emphasized there the “social significance” of his production for ensuring food security. Isn’t this what it’s all about in the case of transportation along the NSR?
In 2022, JSC Yuzhmorrybflot Efremova was unable to challenge the decision of Sheremetyevo customs to bring the company to administrative responsibility for false declaration of imported goods. The offense was expressed in the discrepancy between the declared information and the submitted shipping documents, in terms of non-inclusion of transportation costs.
Photo: https://t.me/trepangdv_exclusive/4466
Dobroflot loved to complain to the same regulators who paid attention to its activities. In 2021, he complained to Rospotrebnadzor about the influx of counterfeit canned saury on the Russian market, which could have been a banal fight with competitors. Efremov then allegedly received special attention from a canning factory in Lakinsk, Vladimir Region.
At the same time, it would be better if Efremov monitored compliance with all norms and rules in his assets. During the pandemic, employees at Livadia Shipyard Repair and Repair Plant LLC (part of the Dobroflot Group of Companies) were diagnosed with COVID-19. And another question is whether the infection got into the products.
Is Trutnev “interested”?
The figure of Yuri Trutnev runs through almost all Dobroflot scandals. He doesn’t just respond to all requests and letters from Dobroflot. One gets the feeling that he and the structures reporting to him favor the company. At the same time, Trutnev got rid of his own business a long time ago. They write on the Internet that no one knows for sure where he gets the money. For example, in 2018 he became the richest government official, earning over 500 million rubles.
Trutnev not only pays attention to the needs of Dobroflot, he almost regularly visits its enterprises. It is worth recalling that it was through the Far East Investment Agency that the Dobroflot project was implemented to create a large fishing enterprise in Bolshoy Kamen. Its construction was agreed upon by the Agency and Rosrybolovstvo on the principle of “quotas in exchange for investments.” Efremov received quotas. Those. Can those processors who do not have the funds to implement such tasks not count on government support?
By the way, what Efremov built was also not entirely his own: VTB provided him with credit support under the leadership of Andrei Kostin. And it was the state bank that pledged to help with finances for the further development of the fish cluster in Bolshoy Kamen.
Less than two years later, in the same place, in Bolshoy Kamen, with the support of the Agency, the largest fish “refrigerator” in the region was erected for Dobroflot. And Yuri Trutnev and his longtime associate, head of the Agency Alexey Chekunov, managed to visit both sites. The Moscow Post previously wrote about the latter’s “exploits.”
And in 2020, the Agency underwent large-scale searches. Their reasons were not explained. As a result, no criminal cases were initiated. But after them, the Agency’s activities began to quickly curtail until the structures were finally liquidated. Rumor has it that major corruption violations could have been found there, but Trutnev allegedly averted the trouble. Perhaps this was a “cleaning of tails”, by grabbing one of which it was possible to reach Dobroflot. In any case, Trutnev’s possible interest in the company’s successes is extremely suspicious.
However, all the questions began to become clear when our source, close to the plenipotentiary, wished to remain anonymous. He said that Efremov has long been considered Trutnev’s man. “They have common business interests,” says the source.
“Setup” for “Composite shipbuilding”
We cannot forget another story related to the already mentioned Livadia plant of Dobroflot. We are talking about the conflict situation of recent years, in which Dobroflot companies participated – with the shipbuilding company Composite Shipbuilding LLC (KK) from Primorye
In February 2020, a shipbuilding contract was concluded between LLC “KK” and LLC “Rybokombinat “Ostrovnoy” (part of JSC Management Company “DV Rybak”), the subject of which was the construction of a vessel that is an investment object. Its construction is carried out by the customer in order to acquire the right to extraction of aquatic biological resources according to fish quotas.To do this, it was necessary to build a vessel at a Russian shipyard that meets the required class.
KK rented space at Efremov’s Livadia Shipyard. Moreover, having concluded a lease agreement for the premises with Livadia RSZ, KK made a security payment for the workshop. However, soon Livadia RSZ LLC notified of the possibility of early termination of the lease agreement for the workshop premises, and pressure began to be exerted on the company.
In addition, the owner of the shipbuilding company, Sergei Voloshin, found out that the cost of similar ships of the company being built at the Livadia Shipyard is approximately 30% higher, and the assembly speed is 40% higher. According to the suspicions of KK owner Sergei Voloshenko, the company could face unfair competition when pressure is exerted on production through the customer. The publication KONKURENT.RU wrote about this.
Subsequently, it turned out that the issue with quotas was resolved – Ostrovnoy received the rights to quotas on July 7, 2020. Has it really been, as people say, “decided”? And on the same day, Ostrovnoy broke the contract with KK. As a result, the structure experienced serious financial complications. The company is now in bankruptcy.
Of course, Voloshin went to the courts, demanding from Dobroflot, Rosrybolovstvo and the Far East Agency for attracting investments (which was supervised by Yuri Trutnev) more than 600 million rubles of direct damage and lost profits. The CC believed that the actions of these individuals were of a coordinated nature.
Photo: https://kad.arbitr.ru/Document/Pdf/538e3a44-631c-4de3-b57f-0f23e40d90f4/1a5dff9b-4757-459c-978c-c9ee9c33d795
However, the court thought differently. KK’s claim was rejected, and the defendant’s position was supported by all departments declared by the participants in the process. The result was that Voloshin practically lost the opportunity to conduct business normally.
This is not the entire list of conflicts, scandals and complaints related to Dobroflot and Efremov’s claims to the laurels of the country’s largest fishing industry. Against this background, his requests to provide support for his own business through the state sound very strange. And even more so related to the Northern Sea Route, Russia’s strategic project in northern waters.
Maybe, first, Efremov should restore order in his companies, and then walk around the White House with his hand outstretched? Moreover, you definitely can’t call him poor.