A unique criminal case – director and owner of Selvi LLC Ruben Manukyan faces criminal charges for stealing money from his company. Looking ahead, let's say the money remained at the enterprise, and the lawyer who had been accompanying the organization for many years became an “accomplice”.
In December 2023, at the request of the prosecutor's office of the Oktyabrsky district of Novosibirsk, the investigator of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism) for the Oktyabrsky district Valeria Tomilova opened a criminal case against Ruben Manukyan, the majority owner of Selvi LLC and Andrey Panasenko, director of the Vesta law firm, which represents the interests of Selvi in the courts. According to investigators, Manukyan and Panasenko stole 18 million rubles belonging to the Selvi company.
Yes, you understood everything correctly: a Novosibirsk entrepreneur is accused of embezzling from himself. For this daring crime he faces up to 10 years in prison.
But, as always, let’s look at the matter in detail:
“Selvy” is a company with a long history. The company produces carbon dioxide and, beyond the Urals, occupies a leading position in the industry.
To be clear, liquid carbon dioxide is used in the production of carbonated drinks, and its solid form (known as dry ice) is used in the food industry to transport food. Selvi products are also supplied to enterprises of the military-industrial complex.
The company has good profits. And as usual, there are always those who want to get a ready-made working business. Receive, not build.
In 2016, the company's directors Alexandra Shcherbakova suspected of theft. According to the owner, over the years of work the director could have mixed up his pockets several times: his own and the common one. The company was missing about 600 million rubles. The director, of course, left his post, and the Novosibirsk police collected 12 volumes of audit material. It turned out that Selvi’s counterparties made payments for shipped products in cash or by transfer to third party accounts. During the audit, statements of accounts of several legal entities to which the company's funds were withdrawn were also obtained. But instead of initiating a criminal case, the inspection material was lost in the police archive. Today, the Arbitration Court of the Novosibirsk Region is considering Selvi’s claim to recover from Shcherbakov the losses he caused to the company in the amount of 225 million rubles.
Trouble came from unexpected places. They decided to declare a company with large turnover, orders, and production lines bankrupt due to a claim of 10.5 million rubles. A certain Arthur Lotarev, a friend of Alexander Shcherbakov, bankrupted the manufacturer.
Who Arthur is and what they owe him for, the “Selvo people” have already sorted out in court.
As follows from the materials of arbitration cases, when Shcherbakov served as director, five loan agreements and cash receipt orders dated 2015 in the amount of 10.5 million were prepared between “Selvi” and Lotarev. The money was deposited by Shcherbakov’s driver Andrey Grinev to the “Selvi” account with the wording “to repay loans.” Although in the enterprise’s reporting these amounts were reflected as “gratuitous contributions from the founder, replenishment of working capital.”
The company has paid off all creditors' claims. As a result, Lotarev received 18 million rubles including interest. Bankruptcy failed.
Who benefited from it? Perhaps those who themselves owe the company money?
In 2020, the Arbitration Court of the Novosibirsk Region declared the loan agreements with Lotarev invalid (case A45-42502/2018) and ordered him to return 18 million rubles to the company. The court's decision survived the cycle of appeals.
However, Lotarev was in no hurry to repay the debt. And a new bankruptcy procedure began. Only now Lotarev himself has gone bankrupt as an individual (case No. A45-6272/2021). In July 2020, “Selvi” filed a statement regarding the theft of 18 million rubles by Lotarev.
The first department of the Investigative Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the city of Novosibirsk opened a criminal case, which was drowned in red tape. Investigator Emma Matern Three times she issued a resolution to terminate the criminal case, which was repeatedly canceled by both the prosecutor’s office and the court. Today “Selvi” is waiting for a hearing in the Novosibirsk Regional Court to appeal the investigator’s latest decision to terminate the criminal case.
Legal support for “Selvi” was provided by the company “Vesta”. In August 2021, the director of the company, Alexander Panasenko, took over further proceedings to collect the debt from Lotarev, having drawn up an assignment agreement with Selvi. Panasenko bought out Lotarev’s debt for a million rubles.
We asked the Selvi representative why the price for the debt was 18 times less.
After replacing the creditor in Lotarev’s bankruptcy, money immediately appeared, and Lotarev easily shelled out 18 million rubles. It seems that bankruptcy could be fictitious? Although, maybe someone gave him 18 million? Hypothetically, a person with an amount of, for example, 225 million could do this.
Immediately after this, Shcherbakov’s daughter Yulia Danilova, as a participant in “Selvi” with a 12.5% share of the capital, challenged the assignment agreement in the arbitration court, citing an understatement of the value of the claims transferred to Panasenko. The court upholds the claim and obliges Panasenko to pay Selvi 17 million rubles. Panasenko fulfills the court decision and pays this money to society.
If you suddenly don’t understand, then above we described the theft of 18 million rubles by Manukyan and Panasenko. According to the Oktyabrskaya prosecutor's office. The victim in this “scheme” should be the society, but there was no statement from it. A similar practice was used when initiating a criminal case against the famous businesswoman Natalya Zhdanova. And, an incredible coincidence, also at the request of the October Prosecutor's Office.
In the spring of 2023, Shcherbakov’s daughter Danilova submitted an application to the Oktyabrsky District Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) for the Novosibirsk Region. But the initiation of a criminal case was refused. The money is there, no one's rights are violated.
In September 2023, the Arbitration Court of the Novosibirsk Region refused to satisfy the claim of Danilova, who tried to challenge the ownership of Ruben Manukyan. The fact is that Manukyan, having become a relative of the previous owner, received the share as a gift.
Danilova considers the deal to be a sham and believes that Manukyan actually paid money for a share in Selvi, and the deed of gift was signed solely so that Danilova could not exercise the priority right to purchase. The only argument is that such expensive gifts are not given even within the family. The question is, of course, debatable, but within the framework of kitchen conversations, not arbitration proceedings. And the court had no choice but to refuse Danilova. But the appellate instance decided to consider the case according to the rules of the first. In the Seventh Arbitration Court of Appeal in Tomsk, the proceedings have been ongoing for the ninth month, two of the three judges on the panel have been replaced. Journalists from Anticorr.media will visit this unusual process.
If we compare the logic of the plaintiff in civil proceedings and the applicant in criminal proceedings, we get an interesting picture: Ruben Manukyan acquired a stake in the company for approximately 140 million rubles (this figure appears in the valuation certificates presented by the plaintiff), he paid this money secretly, that is, without having possibilities in case of anything (for example, lawsuits with other owners) to get them back. And he made this expensive purchase, apparently in order to steal 17 million rubles. Some kind of strange scam.
Unlike Danilova, whose representative objected to the termination of Selvi’s bankruptcy and insisted on liquidating the company, Manukyan brought the company out of debt.
Investigative actions against the accused in the “theft of the century” case have not yet been carried out. The editors ask the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism) to verify the legality and validity of initiating a criminal case, bringing in the accused and confiscating a large volume of documentation and office equipment necessary for the further operation of the enterprise. It is obvious that the corporate conflict has turned criminal, which, unfortunately, often happens in the Novosibirsk region. Apparently, arbitration courts have ceased to cope with the onslaught of “professional victims” who challenge not only gifts in the form of a share, but also gifts to female employees of the enterprise on the Eighth of March, believing that the purchase of tulips is a sham transaction for the withdrawal of several thousand rubles. Read about the most extraordinary trials in this story in the next publication.
