How Russian billionaires protect assets from EU sanctions

Reuters news agency, citing three people familiar with the matter, said that Melnichenko gave up his shares in coal energy company SUEK AO and fertilizer producer EuroChem on March 8 – the day he turned 50. age, and let his wife, Aleksandra Melnichenko, be the beneficial owner of the company.

Melnichenko previously owned the two companies through a chain of trusts and corporations stretching from Moscow to the Swiss town of Zug, to Cyprus and Bermuda, legal filings obtained by Reuters were found. show that.

According to the three people who disclosed the information above, since 2006, Mr. Melnichenko’s wife has held second place after her husband in the list of beneficial owners of the two companies in the trust documents. This means that Aleksandra Melnichenko will inherit the ownership of the company if her husband dies.

However, when the Russia-Ukraine war broke out in February, the billionaire became worried that he would be appointed under the EU’s Russia sanctions mechanism. Therefore, on March 8, he informed the trustees that he would no longer be a beneficiary. This triggered a similar sequence of changes in the trust record, which would only happen if the businessman died and made his wife the beneficiary.

Currently, Reuters has not been able to reach Mr. Melnichenko and his wife to request comment on the information. A spokesman for SUEK in Russia also did not respond to a request for comment. Meanwhile, EuroChem group confirmed that Ms. Aleksandra had replaced her husband as the beneficial owner.

Ms. Aleksandra’s role at EuroChem was first reported by the Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger. The woman’s role at SUEK as well as the time of change of ownership and other details were also mentioned by the newspaper.

Mr. Melnichenko founded SUEK and EuroChem two decades ago and was ranked by Forbes magazine as Russia’s eighth-richest person last year. He has an estimated net worth of $18 billion.

The EU on March 9 sanctioned this billionaire on the grounds of close ties to the Kremlin. Sanctions against Mr Melnichenko include an asset freeze, a ban on importing EU photos and a ban on EU institutions from funding the billionaire. However, the punishment did not apply to his wife or their son and daughter.

The UK also added Mr. Melnichenko to the country’s sanctions list on March 15, after the EU made a decision. Next, Switzerland also made a similar decision. The businessman told Reuters in March that the war in Ukraine was “really tragic” and he called for peace. Mr Melnichenko’s spokesman said at the time he was “not affiliated with any political party”.

The West has imposed extensive sanctions on companies and individuals Russia in an attempt to force Moscow to withdraw its troops from Ukraine. However, some of the Russian businessmen who were sanctioned, including billionaires Roman Abramovich and Vladimir Yevtushenkov, have transferred assets to friends and family members, raising doubts about the effectiveness of the sanctions. this.

Hoai Linh