The court decided to transfer the assets of the car dealer “Rolf” to the state

The court in St. Petersburg decided to seize all the assets of the largest Russian car dealer “Rolf” in favor of the state. The General Prosecutor’s Office appealed to the court with such a demand. This is the first case in Russia when the company of a Russian businessman is transferred to the state management – previously only businesses of foreign owners were subject to nationalization.

All shares of JSC “Rolf”, LLC “Rolf Motors” and shares in the authorized capital of three affiliated companies will be collected as state income, “Kommersant” clarifies. The total value of the holding’s assets is about 60 billion rubles.

A lawsuit demanding the nationalization of all Rolf’s assets was filed on December 27 last year. In it, the Prosecutor General’s Office asked the court to seize the assets “as property obtained in violation of the anti-corruption legislation.” A few days before filing the claim, on December 22, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree transferring the shares of the country’s largest car dealer, Rolf, to the temporary management of Rosimushchestvo. The founder of “Rolf”, a former deputy of the State Duma, Sergey Petrov, in a comment to RBC, called the decision a “legal absurdity”.

• Petrov has been internationally wanted since 2019 and does not live in Russia. A criminal case was instituted against him and a number of Rolf managers on suspicion of illegal currency transactions and taking about four billion rubles offshore. The businessman does not admit his guilt, saying that it was a matter of normal business optimization within the framework of one company.