He is on the list of 1,706 Russians affected by 14 European sanctions targeting Moscow since the start of the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Mikhail Maratovich Fridman, co-founder of Alfa Group, whose assets are estimated at at least 11.3 billion euros, nevertheless benefited from a favorable ruling by the European General Court on April 10. The judges ruled that it could not be proven that he supported the decision-makers responsible for the Ukrainian war and the annexation of Crimea.
In response to the ruling, the oligarch, described by the European Council as a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, is taking the next step: He is demanding that the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, which approved and implemented the European sanctions, return all of his assets and pay financial compensation for the “irreparable and catastrophic damage” suffered by his businesses, totaling $16 billion (14.5 billion euros).
The information was revealed by the Brussels website EUobserver.com on August 14 and confirmed in Luxembourg. In response to a request for comment from Le Monde, Chancellor Luc Fryden’s office simply replied: “Mikhail Frydman has opened arbitration proceedings. The government is currently examining the claims and its next steps together with its legal advisers.”
The Russian billionaire has made Luxembourg the capital of his empire since the early 2000s in his quest for “fair and impartial” arbitration in Hong Kong, his advisers said.
Support for the war against Ukraine
The president of Alpha (banking and insurance), which also has investments in telecommunications, energy and water treatment, is demanding that the dispute be resolved under the rules of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), an organisation set up in 1966 to harmonise and unify international trade law. He is being assisted by a group of legal experts, London law firm Omnia Strategy, headed by Cherie Blair, the wife of the former Labour prime minister, and the Paris law firm Keyman Malambert.
The case is clearly an embarrassment for the grand duchy, which has a gross domestic product of 79.3 billion euros in 2023. Mr. Fridman’s advisers argue that Luxembourg has violated guarantees set out in a bilateral agreement it signed with Moscow in 1989. The agreement also protects investments in several other countries, including Britain, where Mr. Fridman lives in a mansion and where he founded the LetterOne investment fund, Ukraine, where he was born, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain.
You can read 49.96% of this article. The rest is available to subscribers only.
