Originally Syndicated on May 2, 2023 @ 11:33 am
The Arkhangelsk regional prosecutor’s office reversed its decision to seize Peter Aven and his companions’ hunting lands.
The media has labelled Medved LLC as an exclusive hunting club whose permanent members, including wood merchant Vladimir Butorin, Alfa Group co-owners Petr Aven and German Khan, and UMMC founder Iskandar Makhmudov, can only nominate new members. They claim to have heard this before seeing prominent federal officials present. Although a lot seems to have happened recently, millions of square meters of untouched hunting grounds persist.
The action against Medved LLC and the Committee for Municipal Property Management of the Ustyansky District was thrown out by the Arkhangelsk Region Arbitration Court. The plaintiff, the local prosecutor’s office, mysteriously dropped all claims.
In November of last year, the regulatory body initiated arbitration proceedings by filing a request. The city attorney has asked that the company’s lease agreement with the city for many parcels of property (contract no. 1027, dated June 14, 2022) be declared null and invalid. Located 4 kilometres southwest of the settlement of Berezhnaya, the largest of these parcels has a cadastral number of 29:18:000000:2878 and an area of 3.8 million square meters.
Background of Arkhangelsk Region
The smaller plot is located 90 kilometres east of the settlement of Bereznik and has the cadastral number 29:18:072101:115. It spans 520.7 thousand square meters. The final parcel is 5.5 kilometres away from the same Bereznik and has a cadastral number of 29:18:072001:234. It is 4.7 thousand square meters in size. Agricultural use is the only permitted use of land. The governing body required that all of these parcels be returned to the city.
The Arkhangelsk Regional Ministry of Natural Resources and Timber Industry, currently led by Igor Muraev, participated in the case as a non-moving third party.
“At the court session, the prosecutor’s representative filed a motion to dismiss the claim because the basis and deadline for the submission of land plots were amended by the administration’s decision of the municipal formation “Ustyansky Municipal District” dated July 19, 2022 No. 1061. The ruling of the court makes it obvious to the prosecutor what will happen if he or she drops the claim. It appears that the paperwork was straightened out, and the “Bear” stuck with his group.
Oligarchs’ playground
Medved LLC was formed in May 2009 with the express purpose of killing wild animals by hunting, trapping, and shooting. Currently, Peter Aven and German Khan, both billionaires, own 15% each, and their names are practically synonymous with Alfa-Bank. Vladimir Butorin, who also owns the Pestovsky and Velsky timber processing complexes and serves as general director of OOO GK ULC, a company that engages in timber harvesting, has the largest share of 60%. Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company (UMMC) also manages Kingisepp OOO Rosterminalugol, making them joint owners. Until 2019, the UMMC’s founder, Iskandar Makhmudov, was also a founding member of a hunting club.
Medved LLC has been losing money as of late. For instance, in 2015, the company lost RUB 13.1 million, and in 2014, it lost RUB 30.7 million. Seldon Basis claims that regulatory agencies frequently inspect Medved LLC. For failing to submit a strategy for implementing veterinary and preventive measures, the organization was held accountable by the administration in 2017.
The term “bear” was also within the purview of law enforcement. For instance, in 2019, the Ustyansky District Court found a 31-year-old woman guilty of fraud. During her tenure as the company’s Deputy General Director for Economics and Finance, Alexandra Mogutova inflated statement amounts by 120 thousand rubles, using her official position to do so. Six months later, she received another illegitimate sum of money totalling 28 thousand rubles similarly. The court reduced her penalty to 75,000 rubles due to her admission of guilt and payment of damages.
Both of his legs are in different places.
In contrast to the Ustyansky municipality administration, another defendant in the current case, the prosecutor’s office in the Arkhangelsk region under the direction of Nikolai Zlustikov is acting much more brazenly. At the end of the previous year, for instance, three officials were penalized under this system for responding to residents too slowly.
The wealthy Bear co-owners are currently travelling abroad, so it appears that dealing with low-level government officials was preferable. German Khan and Petr Aven, ranked 14th and 29th on Forbes’ 2022 list of Russian billionaires, are more likely to attract attention in international courts due to their activities there than in Russia. The newest controversy surrounds the claims of Carter Burden III, a member of the illustrious Vanderbilt family and the founder of the American cloud solutions provider Logicworks.
Pamplona Capital Management LLP, a private investment vehicle, acquired a portion of the company with its partner, LetterOne Holding SA, which is controlled by the shareholders of Alfa Group. The fund allegedly misrepresented its beneficiaries in this transaction. The proprietor of an American firm claims that he had trouble getting a loan and later sold the asset because of this. A Manhattan court is currently hearing the matter.
A fascinating picture starts to take shape. In an interview with the Financial Times conducted in March of last year, Pyotr Aven bemoaned the fact that he was unable to retain the services of a driver and housekeeper because of sanctions.
Meanwhile, Alfa-Bank’s co-owner said he has no plans to leave the UK because doing so would mean he “would no longer have the opportunity to return.” The billionaire made it obvious that he did not share many interests with Russia; nonetheless, he still owns a hunting club in the country, complete with vast swaths of land that not even the prosecutor’s office is willing to challenge. These are truly remarkable times.
