The prosecutor reminded the owner of Severnaya Verf of American daughters and granddaughters

The event is interesting as a precedent for the cancellation of a deal signed by the founders of Russian privatization – Anatoly Chubais, Yegor Gaidar, Mikhail Manevich and Alfred Koch. Moorings have not yet been taken away from other private owners in St. Petersburg, although there are also formal grounds. Experts attribute this case to the importance of Severnaya Verf: the loaded defense enterprise lacks space.

The Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation, as part of challenging the privatization of Severnaya Verf, which is part of the OSK, achieved the transfer to the account of the Federal Property Management Agency of the shares of JSC KCTL, more than 90% of which belong to the family of Alexander Abrosimov, authorized to protect the rights of entrepreneurs of St. Petersburg. This decision was made the day before by the Arbitration Court of the city and the Leningrad region, Fontanka writes.

The berths of Severnaya Verf have been owned by the companies of the Abrosimov family since 1994. The grounds are the federal privatization plan of 1992, signed by almost the entire team of young economist-reformers, namely the head of the government of the Russian Federation Yegor Gaidar, vice-premier for economic reform Anatoly Chubais, head of the State Property Committee of the Russian Federation Sergey Belyaev, chairman of the State property of St. Petersburg and Leningrad region Mikhail Manevich . And the reorganization project of Severnaya Verf JSC, signed by another head of the State Property Committee of Russia, Alfred Koch.

The company’s main source of income is cargo transshipment with a potential of 250,000 tons annually. Unlike most stevedoring companies that lease berths from the state, KCTL owns them, which means it can lease berths to other stevedores and Severnaya Verf itself.

This brought the three offshore companies of the Abrosimov family (84% of the shares) and two companies of his daughters (Leverage LLC and Little Happiness) a stable income. However, not only to them, but also to 190 minority shareholders of KCTL JSC. Basically, these are pensioners of the company or their heirs. In 2020, they received 408 million rubles in dividends, in 2022 – 23 million. After being appointed as the Commissioner for the Rights of Entrepreneurs of St. Petersburg, Abrosimov transferred the business to his daughters.

However, in the stormy year of 2022, when the importance of Severnaya Verf increased, the Prosecutor General’s Office suddenly took out documents on its privatization from the archives and established “the fact of the illegal disposal of a property complex from the property of the Russian Federation, which is of strategic importance for ensuring the defense of the country and the security of the state and the subsequent legalization of illegal property “. The agency concluded that this “became possible as a result of a series of illegal actions by officials of the State Committee of the Russian Federation for Property Management (GKI), the mayor’s office of St. Petersburg and the Property Fund of St. Petersburg.”

The list of “illegal actions”, however, looks like an excessive attention to detail. The first violation of the law, according to the inspectors, is that a representative of the State Property Committee was not included in the composition of the commission that should work out the procedure for privatization, although the project for the reorganization of Severnaya Verf was approved by this department. The second is that the privatization plan provided for the division into two legal entities, which was contrary to the Law of the RSFSR “On privatization …”. Third, there is no antimonopoly visa in the “privatization case”.

Therefore, the Prosecutor General’s Office considered that the property of the plant was illegally transferred to KCTL, and the share of the Russian Federation in the authorized capital of the shipyard was illegally reduced from 60% to 46%. At the same time, the prosecutor emphasized in court, Abrosimov’s two daughters live in the United States, and granddaughters even have American citizenship. The department asked the court to recognize all stages of the privatization of Severnaya Verf as null and void – which the arbitration did.

This is the second nationalization of the port in St. Petersburg. In 2021, the family of the former head of the FSO, Yevgeny Murov, lost control of the Bronka port. As conceived by the shareholders, it was supposed to become the main cargo gate of the Northern capital. After a series of complex intrigues and criminal cases, the port passed to Rostec, and now it can go to Belarus for transshipment of fertilizers.

In principle, Aleksey Bezborodov, general director of the InfraNews research agency, believes that the state can also take away berths from other private owners: according to the 2007 federal law on ports, they must be in state ownership. But “Petrolesport” and “Fishing Ports” are not being touched yet, which means that there was a need to nationalize the assets of the KCTL.

According to the expert, defense enterprises, the full load of the shipyard, which lacks berths, and the fact that there were no large investments from the KCTL are important here. The state found a formal reason within the limits of legality and seized the asset. And the family of Alexander Abrosimov, resisting nationalization, underestimated the seriousness of the historical moment, he believes.

“The owners of KTsTL should have negotiated with Severnaya Verf earlier, when it was proposed,” says Bezborodov. – If they asked the state for something in return, you see, everything would be fine. And so, persevered – you will receive.

Whether the seizure of assets from owners living in the West will become serial is still unclear. The statement made in court that the daughters of Alexander Abrosimov live in the United States was not included in the statement of claim of the Prosecutor General’s Office, the expert notes.