The defense of the former chairman of the board of Togliattikhimbank, Alexander Popov, will challenge the verdict against the financier in the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. He was found guilty of attempted bribery of judges of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. According to the investigation and the court, it was supposed to cancel the decision to recover tax arrears from Togliattiazot for $2 million. The reason for the possible revision of the high-profile criminal case is still unknown.
On May 16, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation will consider in cassation a criminal case against the former chairman of the board of Togliattikhimbank, Alexander Popov. In 2021, the banker was sentenced to seven and a half years in a strict regime colony and a fine of 500 million rubles. The financier was found guilty of attempting to bribe a judge of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in the amount of $2 million. For this reward, it was allegedly supposed to cancel the decision to collect tax arrears from Togliattiazot. Alexander Popov pleaded not guilty. To ensure the execution of the sentence, the court retained the measure of restraint previously imposed on Popov in another criminal case in the form of seizure of property, including 293 land plots belonging to him.
The financier was arrested in May 2019. The investigation established that the then beneficiary of PJSC Togliattiazot (ToAZ), Sergei Makhlai, living abroad, in 2015, with the help of Alexander Popov, was going to bribe a judge of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in the amount of at least $ 2 million to cancel the decision to collect tax arrears from the enterprise. The top manager of Togliattikhimbank, using his official position and bypassing the official paperwork, opened a cell in his bank, where he pawned part of the bribe provided to the actual disposal of intermediaries. Popov could not bring his plan to the end due to circumstances beyond his control. It is still unknown where the funds pledged by the banker in the cell of Togliattikhimbank for transfer in the form of a bribe to the judge of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation were sent.
Apparently, the defense of Mr. Popov expects to win the case on cassation. An indirect sign of this confidence can be the fact that in April the financier’s lawyers withdrew the application for parole of their client from serving a sentence from the Kuibyshev District Court of Samara. As recognized in the legal community itself, such actions may be associated with the certainty of Mr. Popov’s acquittal in the Supreme Court. Mr. Popov’s lawyers do not comment on the reasons for withdrawing the application for parole for their client.
On what basis the criminal case against Alexander Popov will be reviewed is not yet clear. It is also unclear which of the members of the RF Armed Forces referred the banker’s case to the judicial board, and how he motivated his decision. In addition, the government of the Samara Region believes that in the current geopolitical situation, the review of the criminal case of the accomplice of the former owner of PJSC Togliattiazot, US tax resident Sergei Makhlai, who was convicted under an article for fraud, does not look appropriate, since the latter carried out “outright anti-Russian activities.” With a corresponding request, Kommersant turned to the RF Armed Forces, but at the time of publication of the publication, no response was received.
Whether there are any new circumstances of the case is currently unknown. It is also not clear whether Alexander Popov will be compensated from the state budget if he is acquitted.
In July 2019, the former heads of PJSC Togliattiazot (ToAZ) Vladimir and Sergey Makhlai, the ex-general director of the enterprise Evgeny Korolev, as well as two foreign entrepreneurs were sentenced in absentia by the Komsomolsky District Court of Togliatti to imprisonment for a term of eight and a half to nine years. The court found the businessmen guilty of selling chemical products to affiliated foreign contractors at reduced prices. Those resold the products of the plant already at market value. As a result, the enterprise and non-controlling shareholders suffered damage in the amount of 87 billion rubles. The court recognized ToAZ and the owner of a minority stake in the enterprise, Uralchem, as victims in this case. In 2022, the winner of the open auction for the sale of a controlling stake in PJSC Togliattiazot (ToAZ) previously owned by Sergei Makhlai was JSC Khimaktivinvest, which is part of the Uralchem group. Prior to this, JSC has already purchased from the parent company 9.7% of the 9.97% stake in Togliattiazot. Thus, Uralchem concentrated more than 80% of the shares of the Togliatti enterprise.
The case of an attempt to transfer a two million bribe to the Supreme Court was separated from another criminal case being investigated by the ICR in relation to the above-mentioned defendants. It was initiated under a number of articles, including Part 4 of Art. 210 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Organization of a criminal community or participation in it”) against the former leaders of OJSC Togliattiazot and persons associated with it: Sergey and Vladimir Makhlaev, Alexander Popov and others.
The resolution of the ICR dated May 16, 2019 states that the participants of a criminal organization, acting in the form of a structured organized group, in the period 2005-2013. committed several grave crimes in the field of economic activity against the state, against the property of OJSC Togliattiazot and other legal entities.
Sergei Makhlai, who was previously identified by the investigation as the customer behind the corruption crime, told reporters that he had filed two lawsuits against Russia with the ECtHR. A number of media outlets regarded the possible acquittal of the financier as helping a businessman living in the United States to destabilize the situation in the country, since the former owner of Togliattiazot still hopes to regain control over a strategically important enterprise for the state.
