The Gulf Time Newspaper One of the finest business newspapers in the UAE brought to you by our professional writers and editors.
BLOOMBERG
A billionaire and “close†partner of oligarch Roman Abramovich has become the first person to challenge the UK’s Russian sanctions regime in a London court.
Lawyers for Eugene Shvidler, who has long been associated with Abramovich, filed the claim last month, saying that the UK made “significant errors†in its assessment of Shvidler’s relationship with the former owner of Chelsea Football Club. Shvidler, a British citizen who saw his private jets impounded by the UK, says he’s suffered “serious hardships†since being designated last March, and sought to push back against a government minister who dubbed him a Putin crony.
Shvidler’s case will be the first to be scrutinised by British judges since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The billionaire was also one of the first people to be hit with an asset freeze in a rush of measures in the early days of the conflict and wants the court to quash the “unlawful†order, according to a legal document, filed a year to the day of start of the invasion.
The legal challenge comes as the UK, which has sanctioned more individuals than either the EU or the US, looks for ways to broaden the power and scope of the existing sanctions tools to go as far as allowing the government to seize assets. Shvidler is one of the few tycoons hit by sanctions to claim to never have held a Russian passport.
He built his fortune from the oil major Sibneft following the privatization of Russian industrial assets during the final throes of the Soviet Union, and has a close connection to Abramovich. Until the sanctions hit, the two held stakes in London-registered steelmaker Evraz Plc.
The UK sanctioned Abramovich on March 10, with the European Union following days later. The measures led to a court in the English Channel tax haven of Jersey freezing more than $7 billion of assets linked to him, equal to half his estimated wealth.