The Moscow court arrested the shares of the Cypriot Eastsib Holding of the former top managers of Eurofinance Mosnarbank
The Preobrazhensky Court of Moscow, at the request of the RF IC, seized the shares of the Cypriot Eastsib Holding, which owns a number of Russian oil and gas companies operating in Yakutia, including JSC RNG (former Rostneftegaz). The arrest was imposed in the framework of the case of a particularly large-scale fraud of 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 arrested 749,999,990 shares of Eastsib Holding Company Limited and ten shares of Polybridge Limited at the request of the Main Directorate for Investigating Particularly Important Cases of the RF IC. Company owners are prohibited from selling, pledging, exchanging or doing anything else with their shares. The encumbrance was established until May 11, 2022, the press service of the court told the editors.
In turn, representatives of the oil company, in a conversation with the publication, stated that the damage imputed in the case and the value of the seized assets, the market value of which 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 them is RNG, its authorized capital is 7.5 billion rubles. Gazeta.ru was told by the company that in 2021 alone, RNG JSC transferred taxes in the amount of more than 10.5 billion rubles.
Lord officers
The arrest was imposed as part of a criminal case on 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 teamed up in 2011 to kidnap owned Sergei Glyadelkin and Igor Tkach a share in the capital construction company Yurpromconsulting. According to the plot of the case, which the publication got acquainted with, the accomplices at that time gave the victims deliberately false information about the impending threat of criminal prosecution and the loss of all the company’s property – supposedly employees of the Moscow government are doing everything to break the previously concluded investment contract due to the initiated at the request of Glyadelkin in against the then deputy mayor of Moscow Alexandra Ryabinina cases of bribe.
The defendants promised the victims to return their stake in the company after the scandal subsided, the asset went under the control of Stolyarenko and Bondarenko, but was never returned.
Later, the victims turned to the authorities, and in 2019, the security forces detained Cherkalin, an FSB officer at that time, and two former officers, Vasilyev and Frolov (the latter, at the time of his arrest, worked as a deputy general director for financial risks in two companies of Istsib Holding, SyuldyukarNefteGaz and Istsib exploration”). Stolyarenko and Bondarenko, who by that time were living abroad, were put on the international wanted list by the Russian authorities.
The fate of the accused
Cherkalin, being in a pre-trial detention center, made a deal with the investigation, pleaded guilty to fraud with a share of Yurpromconsulting and an episode of bribery; in April 2021 sentenced him to seven years in a strict regime colony and satisfied the claim for damages in favor of Tkach and Glyadelkin. Vasiliev was released after the fraud case against him was closed due to the statute of limitations. With respect to Frolov, hearings continue.
Cost and damage
Tkach and Glyadelkin, recognized as victims, also increased their civil suit to 25.2 billion rubles, Gazeta.ru found in one of the rulings published on the court’s website. Previously, their claims amounted to 19.4 billion rubles, noted “Interfax”. The amount, in addition to direct damage, businessmen explain “lost profits.”
The arrest of the shares of Cypriot companies was imposed by the court in order to ensure compensation for the harm to the victims and to ensure the execution of the punishment by the accused in the form of a fine. The investigation established that Eastsib Holding and Polybridge Limited “actually belong to the accused Stolyarenko and Bondarenko,” follows from the rulings studied by the publication in the court database. At the same time, the website of RNG JSC indicates that Bondarenko holds the post of chairman of the investment committee under the board of directors in the company; Stolyarenko is not mentioned there. The prosecutor’s office claims that more than 11.2 billion rubles were withdrawn from Yurpromconsulting, which were transferred to the subsidiaries of JSC RNG, Business FM reported.
The businessmen’s defense believes that the court’s decision violated the principle of proportionality.
“The market value of the seized property is more than 200 billion rubles… It is absolutely clear that the preservation of the seizure of property under a lawsuit in the amount of 25 billion rubles, which will never be considered in a criminal trial, is an unreasonable restriction of property rights and is contrary to the goals of justice. Moreover, there is other expensive property arrested in the case, ”said Victoria Burkovskaya, a lawyer for the wanted businessmen, to Gazeta.Ru.
In the Preobrazhensky Court, the publication was told that the arrest was imposed only on the shares of companies. The Basmanny Court, which arrested Frolov, Vasiliev and other defendants in the case, did not respond to the publication’s request regarding the fate of their property. The lawyer for the victims was unable to provide prompt comment.
Burkovskaya, on the other hand, claims that from 2008 to 2011 Tkach was the head of the Moscow department for ensuring the implementation of investment projects and supervision in the field of shared construction and could be the beneficial owner of companies, interaction with which was directly part of his official duties: “It follows from the case file that Tkach , in fact, was engaged in illegal business activities and is now trying to legalize illegally obtained income through an unfounded civil lawsuit.
17 Arbat apartments
If within the framework of the “common” episode for all the defendants in the episode about the theft of a share in Yurpromconsulting, the damage in the case is 637 million rubles, then in the case allocated to fugitive businessmen there is another figure – 3 billion rubles. She is mentioned in the December ruling from the base of the court.
It says that Stolyarenko, Bondarenko from 2004 to 2013 “illegally and free of charge disposed of all the property” of Tkach and Glyadelkin. As Gazeta.Ru found out, businessmen are charged with 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.
3 billion rubles is the cost of these apartments. As part of the episode, Elena Glazkova was arrested in absentia and put on the international wanted list; in 2013, she served as the CEO of the said company. Also, according to the register of legal entities, in 2013-2014 Glazkova was the general director of RNG JSC.
Even taking this episode into account, the defendants’ defense considers the claims unfounded and disproportionate. The resolution on the arrest of the shares notes that the court rejects the argument of disproportion “since the final version of the charge has not been brought, which does not exclude the possibility of its adjustment in terms of determining the amount of damage caused.” In addition, the court noted that “the value of shares may vary depending on demand in the securities market.” The ruling also states that the shares were initially seized at the end of 2020, and now this encumbrance is being extended for the duration of the ongoing preliminary investigation, until the end of this spring.
The RNG company, in its response to a request from Gazeta.Ru, stated that the arrest of shares “extremely negatively” affected its work and “a team of 3,000 people is forced to plan their activities very conservatively.”
“The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation rightly oriented the courts and prosecutors to the fact that they should consider civil claims in criminal cases when passing a sentence only in the amount of the damage imputed by the investigation. In this case, this is a little more than 3 billion rubles, ”the RNG press service explained their position.
Trace on the Lubyanka
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 detected literally 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.
