Sergei Pugachev, a tycoon once dubbed “Putin’s banker”, has filed a claim against Russian Federation for $12 billion after his business empire was carved up when he fell out of favour with President Vladimir Putin, his lawyers said. “I refuse to be intimidated by Russia’s tactics”.
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Sergei Pugachev was once known as “Putin’s banker” for his close ties in the Kremlin.
Mezhprombank, which Pugachev founded in 1992, later became one of Russia’s biggest banks.
Pugachev’s lawyers said that such claims can take years but noted that Moscow is already fighting a separate ruling by the same court in 2014, when it was ordered to pay $50 billion for expropriating the assets of Yukos, once Russia’s biggest oil producer run by Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Before going bankrupt, Mezhprombank received a massive state bailout from the Russian central bank at the height of the global financial crisis, a rescue package worth more than a billion dollars at the time.
Moscow is seeking Pugachev’s arrest under an Interpol warrant that accuses him of embezzlement and misappropriation of public funds. Russian authorities allege that Mr. Pugachev pilfered some of the money and then let the bank fail.
Pugachev, who stated his fortune was as soon as value $ 15 billion, informed Reuters that President Vladimir Putin’s allies had pursued him in courts throughout Europe with fictitious allegations of embezzlement, including that he had feared for his life.
His legal professionals stated that as a twin French-Russian citizen since 2009, he was making the arbitration claim beneath a bilateral funding treaty between the 2 nations, created to guard the rights of buyers.
The Kremlin spokesman also refused to comment on Pugachyov’s $10-billion lawsuit against the Russian leadership. “Pugachev has little chance”, he told reporters.
“I would not mix these two topics”, Peskov said.
Saying he used to talk to Putin virtually every day, Pugachev insisted he had tried repeatedly to resolve the dispute over his belongings, together with at a gathering with the president in Amsterdam two years in the past. He served as an economic adviser to the Kremlin and in 2001 became a senator in Russia’s upper chamber of parliament from the Tuva region, a post he held for a decade.
McNutt said lawyers had proof that Pugachev was still being tailed.
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A Russian Government agency has made claims against Pugachev dating back to the financial crisis in 2008. Following the panel’s decision, either side could then appeal to the courts wherever the panel ends up being based.
