The General Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation filed a claim with the Arbitration Court of the Sverdlovsk Region for the seizure of shares of three industrial enterprises of the Chelyabinsk Electrometallurgical Plant (CHEMK) due to the illegal “taking” of them in the 1990s, writes “Kommersant”.
The prosecutor’s demands for the seizure of shares (and in essence this means nationalization) concern the Serov Ferroalloy Plant, the Chelyabinsk Electrometallurgical Plant and the Kuznetsk Ferroalloy Plant. They belong to the company “Etalon” of Yuri and Lyudmila Antipov.
The prosecutor’s claims are that from 1993 to 1999, regional committees and property funds “clearly acted in excess of authority” when approving the privatization of factories, and distributed 100% of the shares “that did not belong to them,” and therefore the assets came to the Antipovs illegally .
In addition, as the Prosecutor General’s Office claims in the lawsuit, the products of factories intended for the production of weapons and ammunition are exported to the USA, France and the UK at a reduced cost and “to the detriment of national interests.” One of the owners, Yuriy Antipov, in February 2023 registered the assets of the plants to the Etalon company, and they came “under the control of residents of unfriendly states” – in particular, the Canadian-Swiss RFA International, which acts as a trader for ChEMK, the prosecutor’s office says.
CHEMK stated that a similar privatization scheme was used “in absolutely all regions of Russia,” but “errors” were identified only in a few enterprises. Also, the plant owners claim that the enterprises are not part of the military-industrial complex – they say that the products are supplied to metallurgical enterprises, and they send steel to defense plants.
Kommersant notes that it was the violations during privatization that served as the basis for satisfying similar claims from the Prosecutor General’s Office regarding two other enterprises – Volzhsky Orgsintez and Metafrax Chemicals.
As part of the case, the court arrested shares, as well as movable and immovable property of three plants of the ChEMK group. A decision on the claim has not yet been made.
The enterprises of the ChEMK group were named by the Prosecutor General’s Office as the country’s largest producers of ferroalloys used in the manufacture of steel for military equipment, aircraft engines and ammunition. The plant’s website states that its ferroalloy and electrode products are supplied to the largest metallurgical companies around the world.
In April 2023, Putin signed a decree allowing the assets of foreign companies in Russia to be transferred into “temporary management”—that is, in essence, to nationalize them. Under this scheme, in particular, the business of the Danish brewing company Carlsberg and the French dairy products manufacturer Danone was nationalized.
In December 2023, Putin signed a decree transferring the Rolf company, the largest Russian car dealer, whose founder, businessman Sergei Petrov, has Russian citizenship, to the temporary management of the Federal Property Management Agency.
2024-02-13 10:16:00
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