Russian MP will challenge Court over $6 billion

A RUSSIAN MP intends to challenge a Nicosia court ruling to unfreeze $6 billion worth of assets belonging to Russian businessmen on Tuesday, which were frozen after a dispute over a Moscow hotel development.

Ashot Egiazaryan, who is a member of the Russian Duma, filed the case in September 2010 along with two others, Dmitry Fitisov and Artem Egiazaryan, against the businessman Suleiman Kerimov, claiming that he swindled them out of shares in the Moskva Hotel project.

Nicosia district court issued a freeze on Kerimov and several others’ shares in Cyprus-based companies that have a stake in Russian firms, such as Uralkali and Polyus gold.

However on Tuesday they lifted the freeze, ruling that there were insufficient grounds to keep the interim order in place, and that the applicants had failed to convince the petition was urgent.

Commenting on the Cyprus Court’s ruling, Ashot Egiazaryan’s lawyer Andreas Haviaras said: “The Court’s ruling was based on technicalities and did not prejudge the merits of Mr Egiazaryan’s case. We believe that we have strong grounds for an appeal. Mr Egiazaryan remains determined to secure compensation for the Moskva Hotel project that was forcibly taken.”

Egiazaryan maintains that there was a conspiracy between former Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, his wife Elena Baturina, Russian billionaire politician Suleyman Kerimov and Russian businessman Arkady Rotenberg to seize Egiazaryan’s share in the Moskva Hotel project worth $2 billion.

He alleges that he was coerced and threatened to give up his Moskva shareholding. Lawyers for Kerimov and the Moscow City Government denied this, saying Egiazaryan was trying to back out of an agreement.

Judge Michalis Christodoulou also cited non-disclosure of certain elements of the case when the petition for an injunction was first made.

“I have the view the applicants are guilty of serious non-disclosure of facts, which if disclosed would have conveyed a very different picture to court than what was conveyed when the injunction petition was filed,” Christodoulou said.

Underlying claims in relation to this case amounting to over $2 billion have been filed against the conspirators in the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA).

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.