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$7.5bn, Vedomosti daily reported on March 17 citing the copies of court materials. "I have filed a civil complaint against Treasury and OFAC [Office of Foreign Asset Control] to clear my name and remove the sanctions that have been arbitrarily imposed on me for political reasons," Deripaska said on social media. "This is about simple justice." Deripaska and his businesses, along with another Russian tycoon Viktor Vekselberg was singled out in the April 6 round of sanctions, the most damaging sanctions to date that severely impaired his energy and metals major En+, world's second largest aluminium producer Rusal, and other assets. Most recently USTD lifted the sanctions on Deripaska – the first sanctions to be lifted since the sanctions regime was imposed in 2014 after Russia’s annexation of Crimea, but left those that target the businessmen personally in place. Shares in En+ and Rusal both rallied strongly following the decision to lift the sanctions, however, the share price of both companies remains underwater compared to where they were prior to the impositions of sanctions last year. As bne IntelliNews reported, just the value of the 26% Rusal holds in metals giant Norilsk Nickel is now worth more than $3bn the market capitalisation of Rusal. Analysts surveyed by Vedomosti believe that Deripaska's chances winning the case are close to zero, as it would set up a dangerous precedent undermining the authority of the USTD. However, the case has merit as Deripaska has never stood trial for his “crime” of “being close to Putin” and no court has convicted him of anything. This is not the first attempt by Deripaska to clear his name in the US. He took out newspaper ads in 2017 volunteering to testify in any congressional hearings examining his work with Paul Manafort. Reportedly, the FBI pressed Deripaska on whether his former business partner and now convicted ex-chairman of Trump's campaign Manafort was an intermediary between the campaign and the Kremlin. The billionaire also sued the Associated Press for libel following the report that Manafort had secretly worked for him on a plan to “greatly benefit the Putin government” in the mid-2000s. Rusal's shares IPO'd on the Hong Kong exchange at HK$11 and rose to a peak of HK$13, but crashed to under HK$2 following the imposition of sanctions. The shares were trading at HK$3.30 as of the end of last week.
Russian stoligarch and owner of independent gas producer Novatek Leonid Mikhelson has topped the Forbes list of country's richest men with an estimated fortune of $24bn, the rating published on March 5 shows. Notably, Mikhelson's estimated worth jumped from $18bn from last year when he closed the top 3 behind metal tycoons Vladimir Lisin (NLMK, net worth of $21.3bn this year) and Alexei Mordashov (Severstal, net worth of $20.5bn).
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on March 8 he was working to try to end international sanctions against Russia, which the ruling parties in Rome say are ineffective and hurt the Italian economy. Speaking at a foreign policy conference in Genova, Conte said the sanctions, imposed after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, must never become an end in themselves. When asked if Italy wanted them lifted, he replied: “We are working for this objective.”
Sanctioned Russian billionaire and Kremlin insider Oleg Deripaska has sued the US Treasury Department (USTD) in the federal court of Washington, seeking to block the sanctions that have been in place since April 2018. The devastating sanctions on Deripaska breach some of the pillars of the US legislation, such as the presumption of innocence, and the resulting isolation from the global business community is estimated by Deripaska at $7.5bn, Vedomosti daily reported on March 17 citing the copies of court materials.
23 RUSSIA Country Report April 2019 www.intellinews.com