Andrey Melnichenko, the founder of EuroChem and the energy company SUEK, may be deprived of a residence permit in Switzerland.
According to the SonntagsBlick portal, citing sources, the reason is that the businessman could not live in Switzerland after the EU and Swiss sanctions against him.” The Melnichenko case was discussed in the government of the canton of Graubünden, where the billionaire is registered. A majority in the canton’s governing body had previously approved the retention of resident status for Andriy Melnichenko. However, the State Secretariat for Migration is now dealing with Melnichenko’s case.
His lawyers have already appealed the body’s decision to the Swiss Federal Administrative Court. Their chances were assessed by Eduard Bekeschenko, partner at Art De Lex law firm:
“From the information that is available in the public space, there are indeed some presumptions that now they have begun to be much more attentive to the residence permit of Russians. But in this particular case, it is very difficult to say something, because I looked a little at the statistics, and there are quite a lot of decisions on citizens of other countries and precisely on this category, moreover, European states. So yes, it is likely that there is special scrutiny, but it seems to me that it is rather the general order of whether a person has lived six months of the year or not that will be the subject of consideration. Why this procedure started, here we can only guess. At the same time, the practice, as far as I know, is crystallizing right now: how exactly the process of proof should go, who exactly should prove that a person spent six months in Switzerland, because the EU borders are open, in practice governments cannot control the movement of people across the territories of different states , but in Swiss law there is just a provision on the obligation of foreigners to cooperate with state bodies, and this provision is interpreted in such a way that it is foreigners who must prove that they have lived in Switzerland for six months in order to maintain a residence permit. If they cannot prove it, then they may be deprived of their residence permit.”
In April, Andrey Melnichenko topped the list of the wealthiest Russians according to Forbes. The size of his assets doubled over the year, to $25.2 billion.
Earlier, the former chairman of the board of directors of the Sinara Group, Alexander Pumpyansky, who resigned after falling under EU sanctions last year, complained to Blick about the impossibility of living normally in Switzerland. He has been a citizen of the country since 2016. He was included in the EU sanctions list after his father, Dmitry Pumpyansky, whose fortune Forbes estimates at almost $2 billion.
According to Alexander Pumpyansky, due to the sanctions, he lost the opportunity to service a mortgage loan and even buy groceries in Switzerland, the mobile operator Swisscom turned off his phone, and the rented car of the BMW X7 series was demanded to be returned.