LONDON, March 22 (Reuters) – Russian aluminium tycoon Oleg Deripaska on Wednesday denied mendacity in regards to the relocation of EN+ Group from Jersey to Russia to keep away from U.S. sanctions, as he fights his former enterprise accomplice’s try to jail him at London’s Excessive Courtroom.
Deripaska, founding father of aluminium big Rusal (RUAL.MM), has been locked in a dispute with former Russian finance minister Vladimir Chernukhin since 2010 over a three way partnership to develop actual property in Moscow.
Chernukhin – whose spouse Lubov Chernukhin has given greater than 2 million kilos ($2.5 million) to Britain’s ruling Conservative celebration and its lawmakers since 2012 – says Deripaska is in contempt of court docket for allegedly permitting EN+ Group, which owns a 57% stake in Rusal, to “redomicile” in 2019 in response to U.S. sanctions.
Contempt of court docket might be punished by as much as two years in jail and a limiteless superb.
Chernukhin’s legal professionals argue Deripaska breached an enterprise to protect 45.5 million EN+ shares in Jersey to satisfy a $95 million debt to Chernukhin, which has since been paid in full.
Jonathan Crow, representing Chernukhin, stated on Tuesday that the shares had been rendered “nugatory” due to the problem in imposing money owed in opposition to Deripaska in Russia.
However Deripaska, who denies breaching the enterprise, argues the EN+ shares would have been nugatory if the corporate was not redomiciled as the corporate would have been bankrupted.
Giving proof through videolink from Moscow, Deripaska stated he had agreed to scale back his shareholding in EN+ beneath 50% and to the appointment of impartial administrators to its board so as to get U.S. sanctions lifted, as there was “no means out”.
He added that Russian state-owned lender VTB, to which EN+ owed round $1 billion, required EN+ to maneuver to Russia so as to agree with the plan.
His lawyer Thomas Grant stated on Tuesday that Deripaska was giving proof from Russia partly as a result of British sanctions, imposed attributable to his perceived hyperlinks to the Kremlin, prevented him travelling to London.
Grant additionally stated U.S. expenses for allegedly violating sanctions might have prompted U.S. authorities to hunt Deripaska’s extradition from London.
($1 = 0.8167 kilos)
Reporting by Sam Tobin
Modifying by Mark Potter
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