The Tenth Arbitration Court of Appeal upheld the decision to turn over the Moscow Domodedovo Airport group of companies to the state, which was contested by former owner Dmitry Kamenshchik.
On June 17, more than 30 structures associated with the airport were seized for the treasury at the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office. The basis was that the Domodedovo Airport group of companies was under foreign control. Kamenshchik himself and the former chairman of the board of directors Valery Kogan were designated as foreign investors due to the fact that they had additional passports. According to the supervisory authority, they had been expanding the group of companies since 2016 and, contrary to the requirements of Russian legislation, established control over several more strategic enterprises (this requires prior approval from the government commission for control over foreign investments). “Kamenshchik and Kogan are following the aggressive policy of Western states to inflict a strategic defeat on the Russian Federation by damaging its economy,” the statement of claim said, Vedomosti wrote.
Anna Zabrotskaya, Managing Partner in Russia at Nordic Star Law Offices, comments:
“For former owners, the prospects of preserving the asset are extremely limited: the decisions of the first and appellate courts have already entered into force, and the cassation court is more likely to delay execution than to radically change the result. The Domodedovo case will become an important precedent: the privatization of strategic assets does not guarantee stable turnover, even if 20-30 years have passed since the transactions”.
Read more in the Vedomosti article.