At the beginning of April, the Prosecutor General’s Office decided to seize the property of the pasta producer Makfa, for which he was arrested by the bailiff. The expert estimated assets at 100 trillion rubles. Chatting with corporate lawyer Pavel Khlustov RBC He said such an assessment does not reflect the true value of the seized property.
“The State Enterprise did not specify 100 trillion rubles in its claim, it is not 100 trillion rubles but also includes other figures. – Apparently, it was the relevant property that was assessed by the bailiff who seized it. The amount stated by the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office is much less; They estimate the seized property at about $46 billion,” Khlustov said.
It is noteworthy that the declared size of the seized property exceeds the entire supply of ruble money in circulation (99.4 trillion rubles, which is about 1 trillion dollars in dollar terms). At the same time, the fortune of the richest man in the world, Bernard Arnault of the Louis Vuitton conglomerate, owner of Moët Hennessy, is estimated at $ 233 billion, which is significantly less than the stated value of the seized property of the Makfa company. .
Khlyustov considers the prosecution’s claim a “legal fantasy” because the demands are “not based on Russian legislation.” According to the lawyer, there is no information in the documents that the income was obtained illegally, but this alone would serve as the basis for the seizure of assets.
“They simply want all of these alleged properties to be seized and confiscated, due to the fact that the individuals are in certain positions and due to circumstances that they cannot prove in any way, and there is no such evidence in the case materials. owned by two people, two former deputies of the State Duma [Белоусову и Юревичу]”, Khlustov explained. He also noted that these people are not the owners of the company.
According to the lawyer, he cannot predict the outcome of the case because “it is very difficult to ask” the prosecutor’s office. Khlyustov believes that the meeting can be closed.
Makfa case
On March 28, the Chelyabinsk Central District Court received a lawsuit demanding the transfer of Makfa shares to the state due to the company’s alleged corrupt origins. We are also talking about Agromacf, Smak, First Bread Factory, Chelyabinskoblgaz, New Five-Year Plan, Dolgovskaya, Ural-Media, Media-Center and many other companies (34 in total). They are registered in Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk, Kurgan, Moscow, Kherson regions, Moscow, Cyprus and the Netherlands.
The beneficiaries of these companies (the person who received income from the property) were Mikhail Yurevich and Vadim Belousov. Since Yurevich was a State Duma deputy from 2000 to 2005, mayor of Chelyabinsk from 2005 to 2010, and governor of the Chelyabinsk region from 2010 to 2014, they did not have the right to conduct business activities. Belousov was a member of parliament from 2011 to 2023. Law enforcement officials believe that Yurevich and Belousov illegally managed the companies with the help of their relatives and proxies. They also used their job positions to advance the interests of their business. In 2017-2018, Yurevich and Belousov were accused of accepting bribes in the amount of 3.4 billion rubles. Both are wanted. Prosecutors believe that despite their escape, the defendants continued to own and operate businesses in Russia.
“Kommersant” I learned that in addition to these people, cases were filed against 11 more citizens, including Valery and Natalya Yurevich (parents of the former governor), Alexander Yurevich (son), Irina Belousova (wife of the deputy), Valeria and Maxim Chigintsev (daughter). and Belousov’s son-in-law).
Their property and bank accounts were confiscated. However, initially the documents did not specify exactly how much was subject to lien. Lawyer Igor Trunov, in a conversation with Kommersant, claimed that the plaintiff specified 100 trillion rubles as the maximum amount that the software package of the automatic information system of the Russian FSSP could save. It is possible that the defendants’ properties have not been assessed, so it is not possible to give an exact figure. This theory is supported by the fact that garnishment orders state that the bank must immediately disclose the amount of the debtor’s assets.
The court will start hearing the case on April 9.
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Source: Gazeta
Ben Stock is a business analyst and writer for “Social Bites”. He offers insightful articles on the latest business news and developments, providing readers with a comprehensive understanding of the business world.