EU sanctions against Russian billionaire Dmitry Pumpyansky and his family are based on “abuse of power” and serve no clear, reasonable purpose” in accordance with the directions of the foreign policy of the European Union, the businessman’s lawyer Gabriel Lansky said in court during the consideration of his request to lift the sanctions, writes Bloomberg .
The businessman’s family has become “nothing more than collateral damage in the conflict between Russia and the EU,” the statement said. Pumpyansky himself is not “a Russian oligarch in any conventional sense of the term,” the lawyers noted. They assured the court that he was “a self-made businessman who for many, many years successfully built a business that was also clearly in the interests of Europe.”
The Council of the European Union did not believe the arguments of Pumpyansky’s defenders. “Every Russian billionaire we deal with claims that he no longer owns the companies he previously owned, and he got rid of his property just at the same time that restrictive measures were introduced,” said European Council lawyer Bart Driessen. He stated that in all these cases, entrepreneurs continue to “enjoy the economic benefits of ownership, even on paper.”
Forbes currently estimates Pumpyansky’s fortune at $1.7 billion.
The European Union imposed sanctions against the businessman last March, at that time he was the chairman of the board of directors of the Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK), the owner and president of the Sinara Group. Pumpyansky then left the board as director of TMK, ceased to be its beneficiary, and also left the leadership of Sinara. Switzerland also imposed sanctions against Pumpyansky, last August he was also included in the US sanctions list, in October – Japan.
The son of a businessman, Alexander Pumpyansky, who was on the sanctions list along with his father, complained about life in Switzerland after the restrictions were introduced. He has been a citizen of this country since 2016. “Switzerland deprives its own citizens of the opportunity to live in their country,” he said in an interview with Blick. The publication writes that it notes that Pumpyansky condemns the military operation that Russia is conducting in Ukraine, but cannot get permission from the Swiss agency responsible for the application of sanctions (SECO, State Secretariat for Economic Affairs), to pay at least the basic needs of his family.
