Behind the war in Ukraine there is one Italian battle: the one between the State e 28 Russian oligarchs that they own in the Peninsula villas, yachts, planes and companies . Their names are part of the black list drawn up by the European Union after the invasion of Ukraine, when their assets for a total value of approximately 2.7 billion euros. This at least is the estimate of the Financial Security Committee of the Ministry of Economy and Finance which implemented the blockade by applying the Europe regulation.
In 10 appealed to the Lazio Regional Administrative Court, competent to judge on the matter, mostly invoking a basic defect: the assets in question would not be owned by individual natural persons but by various trusts whose benefits, according to them, are not attributable to the “listed” oligarchs. There is therefore an ongoing legal battle which results in about ten proceedings, of which only one has gone to a sentence.
Mordashov and his wife
It is the cause between the Italian State and Alexey Alexandrovitz Mordashovthe billionaire Forbes lists as the richest in Russia with his 29.1 billion euros of family assets. Co-owner of Russia Bank considered the personal bank of many high-ranking Moscow officials, the main shareholder of Severstal which is the industrial energy giant of the mines, Mordashov had appealed against the “seizure” of the yacht Lady M moored near Sanremo, a 60-metre 65 million euro yacht flying the flag of the Cayman Islands. The company formally owning the yacht, Asmare enterprises limited based in the British Virgin Islands, has revolted: “Political and illegitimate act because the Asmare is not Mordashov’s”. But the Tar, on the basis of an investigation by the special currency police unit of the Guardia di Finanza, led by General Vito Giordano, has no doubts: “It is clear that the availability of the yacht is from Mordashov although the property belongs to his wife Marina AlexandrovnaTO”. The men of the Nucleus have in fact unraveled the corporate skein, concluding thus: “Asmare belongs to Ondero limited, whose shares belong to Rannel asset which in turn belongs to Mrs. Marina”. Lady M where the M is in fact for Marina, third wife of the oligarch and former model. As for the reasons why Mordashov is on the black list, the Tar underlines how he is “responsible for providing financial and material support to the Russian decision-makers responsible for the annexation of Crimea and the destabilization of Ukraine”. Conclusion: “The Italian State acted correctly in freezing the boat and the appeal must therefore be rejected”. However, the story is not yet closed. “We have challenged the sentence before the Council of State”, recalled the lawyer Matteo Andracco who assists Asmare.
“It’s not Melnichenko’s”
Analogous to the Mordashov case that of Andrei Melnichenko, another Russian scrooge at the head of a group that produces coal and fertilizers. They blocked him in Trieste on Sailing Yacht A, the largest sailboat in the world, 143 meters, value 450 million euros. “It does not belong to Melnichenko but to a trust managed by an independent trustee”, Esmaail Alroshod reacted on behalf of the oligarch, while the lawyer of the company that owns the yacht, who requests anonymity, appealed to the Tar : «There has been a request for postponement but the next hearing has not yet been set».
Instead, he is awaiting a sentence Alisher Usmanov, Putin’s loyalist considered one of the staunchest opponents of Ukraine, which has seen all assets in Costa Smeralda frozen, including Villa Sa Piantesa it’s a yacht Dilbar. “We have proposed arguments of principle on the black list which we believe are based on a rose water investigation, but we are aware that it will be difficult to overcome due to reasons of state – explains the lawyer and professor Francesco Centonze who has as its client the Pauillac trust, owner of the frozen assets – Then there are the questions of the trust, for which the listed subject does not appear to be the beneficiary, and of the deterioration of the villas which also has an occupational theme inside. They employed about a hundred workers, maintenance workers, waiters and drivers. We managed to get the State Property Agency to appoint an administrator who proceeded to rent them and the money from the rents paid for the maintenance work. This has been good for us. On the rest we are awaiting the sentence».
Italian-Russian superjet
An entirely singular case instead that of Superjet, the aeronautical company based in Venice which until the Russian invasion of Ukraine assembled and marketed civilian aircraft that were built in Siberia. Superjet was in fact born in 2007 as an Italian-Russian joint venture between Aermacchi-Finmeccanica and Sukhoi (later United aircraft corporation). After the freeze, the Italian entrepreneur Victor Guidotti, a former manager of Finmeccanica, has acquired 41% of the capital and the Russians have sold their 49% share to the Arabs of Mark Ab (Emirati) while the remaining 10% is in the hands of the Italian Leonardo: «Superjet, which it employed 150 employees, it was one of the Italian aeronautical jewels. Now it is frozen, there is a risk that the country will lose the production of civilian aircraft. The transfer to Guidotti was questioned by the State Property Agency with the suspicion that the entrepreneur is a figurehead of the Russians – explains the lawyer Raffaele Torino for Superjet – And therefore we are before the Tar to understand what the solution is definitive answer to this affair. The case will be dealt with on 29 March».
The list
The list of affected oligarchs is long. Among others there are Eduard Khudaynatovformerly number one in the oil company Rosneftto which they froze among other things the Villa Altachiara of Portofino which belonged to the Countess Vacca Agusta e lo yacht Sheherazade; Gennady Timchenkofounder of the Volga Group with interests in the energy, transport and infrastructure sectors, which suffered the arrest in Imperia of megayacht Lena; and then the anchorman Vladimir Soloviev that has two villas on Lake Como and the musician Oleg Gazmanov with a property in Lerici.
“These are delicate disputes that bring completely new types of measures to the attention of the judge,” Antonino Savo Amodio summarized in his speech at the opening of the judicial year.
The reasons of the judges
The only judges who have spoken, those in the Mordashov case, explained the freezing measure as follows: «The intention is to react, at European Union level, to an international offense perpetrated by the Russian Federation against Ukraine, as indirect recipient the State and as direct recipients those subjects who have particular and qualified economic ties with Russia».
Mordashov, Melnichenko, Usmanov, Sukhoi… There are 28 in Italy. Question: when will the blockade end? And here everyone sighs.