Firm with Dublin address claimed to have central role in attempt to seize Russian assets.
Click here to read the original article in The Irish Times. Below is an excerpt from the article:
Forced takeover
The idea that a “raid” would lead to the forced takeover of ToAZ would have special meaning to any Russian businessman. Raider attack is a direct translation of the Russian term reiderstvo and is a well-recognised phenomenon in Russia whereby a minority shareholder uses a series of civil and criminal lawsuits, often involving the unlawful aid of State authorities, to seize the target company’s assets and shares for a hugely deflated value. Some of the largest concerns in Russia have been seized in this way.
According to the claims made in the High Court, a Dublin company called Eurotoaz Ltd, with a registered address at the offices of Arthur Cox solicitors, is playing a central role in the lawsuits and other moves designed to effect the threats allegedly made by Mazepin and which the statement of claim says were subsequently put into effect. The two Russian directors of Eurotoaz are among the 11 defendants in the High Court case.
Eurotoaz began its campaign of “vexatious litigation” in July 2009, according to the statement of claim, and made five separate criminal and regulatory complaints in 2009 and 2010. All the claims involved disputed shareholder rights and were dismissed or not pursued.
One of the defendants in the High Court case, Yevgeniy Yakovlevich Sedykin, acted with power of attorney for Eurotoaz in the allegedly vexatious claims. Further criminal complaints were made in February 2014.
As part of the claims, different statements were made on behalf of Eurotoaz as to how it had received its alleged shareholding in Toaz. One version was that it inherited the shares from a dissolved Hungarian company, Eurotoaz Hungary, in 1995.
Rejected by courts
Despite their being rejected by the courts, the Russian Investigative Authorities in Togliatti continued to investigate the claims. As part of this process, orders have been made by the courts for the freezing of shares and other assets with a value of $2 billion, the issuing of arrest warrants, and the removal of Sergei Makhla from the Toaz board.
The raiding scheme referred to during the Budapest and Zurich meetings was, according to the statement of claim, the second such effort to seize Toaz by improper means. The earlier attempt had also involved the Irish company Eurotoaz, though at that stage the company was, according to the document, controlled by Victor Vekselberg. Vekselberg is a Russian oligarch who is said by Forbes to have a value of approximately $13.6 billion.
The earlier raid on Toaz ran from 2005 to 2008 and led to charges being brought against Vladimir Makhlai. Some of the charges were used to try to extradite him from the UK. However, in May 2009, an English court refused to extradite Makhlai, in part because of expert witness testimony that the resultant criminal trial in Russia would be political and “the judge would know the outcome expected and come under pressure to provide that outcome”, according to the summary of the decision in the statement of claim.
The judgment also relied on unchallenged evidence that “clearly implicates officials from the presidential administration in an attempt to influence a judge’s decision in respect of” Toaz.
Following the failure of his effort to seize Toaz, Vekselberg sold his minority shareholding in Toaz to Mazepin, in 2008, according to the statement of claim.
Mazepin then allegedly set in motion his scheme to seize control of Toaz by improper means, using Dublin-based Eurotoaz.
