Petersburg again became the flagship in court cases. General prosecutor’s office decided to challenge the results of the privatization of Severnaya Verf in court after 30 years.
Why did the supervisory authority launch a decisive attack on the stronghold of shipbuilding in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism)?
Old meaning
Today the Severnaya Verf Corporation has 100 various claims at various stages of consideration. In addition, the company has a debt from Dorstroysnab-Terminal LLC for diesel fuel. Despite the generally small amount of debt – 2.5 million rubles, the shipyard received a bankruptcy claim from the company and then the Prosecutor General’s Office came.
In May of this year, the counterparty first decided to collect the debt from Severnaya Verf in court, however, even in this case, it did not receive payment. Then they filed a lawsuit with the Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region to declare the shipyard insolvent.
The supervisory authority, in turn, demands no less than a review of the results of the privatization of Severnaya Verf in 1994. From the point of view of legitimacy, everything seems to be true and correct here – privatization was at one time approved by the city administration and the government of the Russian Federation (*aggressor country). However, the Prosecutor General’s Office filed a lawsuit demanding that the 30-year-old contracts be invalidated for a reason. Such a decisive move suggests that such a decision was made at the very top.
Over the course of several months, the Prosecutor General’s Office obtained through the courts a decision to confiscate the shares of the former subsidiary of Severnaya Verf, JSC KCTL. At the same time, as the media write, there are already collateral victims. These are 220 employees who also had shares in the company. The claims of the supervisory authority look very justified: prosecutors believe that KCTL JSC received the property of Severnaya Verf as a third-party enterprise, and not as a company established by the plant. In court, the position of the Prosecutor General’s Office was simple – this was the withdrawal of the assets of the Northern Shipyard, an outside company, and, therefore, caused harm to the plant and the state.
Further more. Now the prosecutor’s office is asking the court to invalidate the agreement on the formation of a holding group, which was concluded by Severnaya Verf and several companies, and is asking to return the shares to the state.
We are talking about the companies “Machine Building SV”, “EFeS SV”, “Instrument SV”, “Niva SV” and “Nord-West SV”, formed as a result of the privatization of the Leningrad Shipyard named after. A.A. Zhdanov, as the Northern Shipyard was called in past years.
Help from Kompromat Group:
Severnaya Verf, one of the oldest shipyards. Exists since 1912. The first name is the Putilov Shipyard, which was founded as part of the JSC “Society of Putilov Plants”. The plant specialized in the construction of ships for the Russian Navy, and has always occupied a leading position in the country’s shipbuilding industry.
Return to the state
Severnaya Verf is mired in losses in the summer of 2021. That year, the company’s losses reached 1.5. billion rubles, although the plant finished the previous year with a profit, and even gained the largest portfolio of orders for the construction of fishing vessels. It was planned that by the end of 2021, 5 vessels, including two longliners and a trawler, would be launched from transborders. But that did not happen.
Everything would have improved, as many experts who voiced their position in the media believe, if the plant had not fallen under sanctions, like many strategic enterprises in the country, and had not entered into restructuring in 2022. Losses arose due to the fact that customers began to delay payments, the plant was forced to resort to the use of credit funds, and also delay payments to counterparties.
In 2022, according to the annual report, Severnaya Verf planned to get rid of non-core financial investments and sell a stake in Efes-SV JSC, but there were no people willing to buy the company. It was also planned to liquidate OJSC Nord-West SV, but after the completion of numerous trials in arbitration. Shareholders of another company, JSC Mashinostroenie SV, also voted for liquidation. In addition, according to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, Instrument-SV and JSC Niva-SV are already in the liquidation stage.
This year, 2023, the company decided to return to asset sales, however, the Prosecutor General’s Office stood in the way. The government agency believes that in this way a strategically important enterprise, which also produces ships for the country’s navy, may fall into unreliable hands.
Therefore, the General General filed claims to the Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region for the arrest of all the above-mentioned “subsidiaries” of Severnaya Verf. A little earlier, the arbitration court satisfied the claim of the Prosecutor General’s Office and arrested the shares of previously subsidiaries of PJSC Severnaya Verf Shipyard and seized the property of these enterprises.
Help from Kompromat Group:
Over the hundred years of the shipyard’s existence, about 600 surface ships and commercial vessels were built here for the Navy and civilian fleets, including missile cruisers, air defense ships, large anti-submarine ships and destroyers, passenger and dry cargo ships, container ships, Ro-type ships. Ro, bulk carriers, tugs, supply vessels, ferries and floating docks. Today the company’s order portfolio includes a series of frigates, corvettes, longline and trawl fishing vessels.
Whose treasures? Nationalized!
The new lawsuit is accompanied by a request from the Deputy Prosecutor General for interim measures. The state representative asks:
– prohibit making any changes to the register of shareholders;
-prohibit management bodies from making decisions on the payment (declaration) of dividends, distribution of profits and losses, payment of remuneration to members of the board of directors;
– pay dividends in any form;
– asks to seize all movable and immovable property.
The prosecutor’s office believes that interim measures “will prevent causing major damage to a public legal entity and will be aimed at maintaining the existing state of relations between the parties.”
The Arbitration Court recognized the position of the Prosecutor General’s Office as justified and granted the petition. The scales of Themis leaned towards the state, including because the supervisory authority presented evidence that companies began to try to do something with the property and quietly liquidate themselves. Thus, Niva-SV, knowing about the supervisory measures carried out by the prosecutor’s office, decided to liquidate, and decided to divide the state property removed from the enterprise among the company’s owners.
As a result, the companies’ shares and property were arrested. The claims have been accepted for proceedings, hearings on them will take place at the end of November-December 2023.
According to our sources, such drastic maneuvers by the Prosecutor General’s Office are directly related to the new government trend of nationalizing large, strategically important enterprises and returning them under the country’s wing. In St. Petersburg, thus, the procedural testing of such claims is underway. However, the Prosecutor General’s Office already had such experience before, if we recall the Bronka port, which was seized from the assets of billionaire Dmitry Mikhalchenko in favor of the state. But note that there is a nuance. There we were talking about a criminal trial. Severnaya Verf initially discussed debt restructuring. This is a serious hint to big business that short-sighted management of strategic enterprises will be dealt with in the most severe manner. In favor of the state.
compromat.group
