Ziyavudin Magomedov accused Rosatom and Transneft of raiding

Businessman Ziyavudin Magomedov, who is in prison in Russia on charges of large-scale fraud and the creation of a criminal community, filed a lawsuit in a London court for the sum of about 14 billion dollars against the corporations “Rosatom” and “Transneft”. He accuses these companies of participating in the seizure of the shares of Russian port operator companies that belonged to him. At the same time, Magomedov claims that this seizure was initiated by the Russian authorities.

Magomedov’s claim is reported by Reuters. It is confirmed that it was submitted on July 20, but it became known about it only now. Investment company TPG and port operator DP World are also defendants in the case.

Magomedov claims that his arrest in 2018 launched a scheme for the large-scale seizure of his assets, mainly in the interests of Rosatom and Transneft. In particular, according to the lawsuit, the authorities decided to transfer the FESCO transport group, which owns a number of ports, to the control of Rosatom. According to Magomedov, Transneft sought to take away from him and his brother their interests in the Novorossiysk seaport. In particular, Magomedov claims that after the arrest of him and his brother, the president of “Transneft” Nikolai Tokarev promised that he would talk to Vladimir Putin and get them released if the businessman sold his shares for 750 million dollars, that is, significantly below the market value.

The amount of Magomedov’s claim consists of his estimates of the value of the assets he lost after his arrest – 32.2% of the shares of the transport group FESCO ($8.8 billion) and 25% of the shares of NMTP ($5 billion). Lawyers hired by the billionaire said that the claimed amount of claims is a record in the history of the High Court of London, if you do not count collective actions, writes The Bell.

The co-owners of the Summa group, the Magomedov brothers, were detained in March 2018. According to the investigation, they committed embezzlement in the amount of about 11 billion rubles, including during the construction of the Baltika stadium for the 2018 FIFA World Cup and during the reconstruction of the Khrabrovo airport in Kaliningrad. Ziyavudin Magomedov’s fortune before his arrest was estimated at 1.4 billion dollars. Now he is serving a 19-year sentence in a high-security prison. He did not admit guilt.