A Russian Billionaire Can Lose an Expensive Yacht according to the Decision of the London Court
The London Court ordered to arrest the yacht of Farkhad Akhmedov, a Russian businessman, following a claim of his ex-wife though. He says himself that it has to do with politics and assures that his ex-wife is already well-maintained.
Billionaire Farkhad Akhmedov reminded immediately that UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson had threatened Russians with attachment of assets, but in fact the London Court had made a decision on the divorce of Akhmedov and his wife as early as in 2017 — which was one of the most expensive proceedings in the UK history.
Akhmedov was ordered to pay his ex-wife Tatiana about $600 million in cash and assets, including real estate, an Aston Martin car and an art collection. The businessman refused to pay explaining that he had already provided a generous maintenance for his ex-wife. The London Court has now arrested his yacht as a security for payments to his wide. According to Philipp Ryabchenko, a divorce proceeding lawyer, there is no politics here:
Philipp Ryabchenko
Lawyer
“The decision was in fact rendered before the Skripal poisoning and could not, therefore, have a direct effect. I do not see any politics here. What happens now is already the execution of a judgment. We all remember the dispute connected with Rybolovlev. A decision was also rendered there and it pursued him all over the world. If there is a judgment, the attachment of property all over the world is an absolutely normal practice.”
The Luna Yacht under discussion was built according to the order of Roman Abramovich. Akhmedov bought the vessel from him in 2014. It has nine decks and a helicopter landing pad. According to Bloomberg, the yacht costs $492 million. It is now in a Dubai dock, which made the British court suspect that they wanted to take the yacht out of its reach.
According to Akhmedov’s representative, the arrest of the yacht is now going to be appealed against in Dubai this time. Judicial proceedings can allegedly take years and “by that time the yacht can lose its value to a degree that the vessel can only be sold as a metal scrap.” Isn’t it cunning? Vladimir Novikov, a co-owner of Viva Yachting (a Latvian company), says:
Vladimir Novikov
A co-owner of Viva Yachting (a Latvian company)
“He is cunning partly. The maintenance of a yacht, the more so such a serious yacht, requires a lot of expenses, it’s practically daily maintenance. If it is cared for, it has a crew that polishes and changes oil on time, the yacht breathes and lives, and it doesn’t lose its value. If it is stopped, closed, sealed and forgotten about, yes, it loses its value, and it does so seriously.”
Farkhad Akhmedov and Tatiana Akhmedova lived together in London in the 1990s, but then the businessman returned to Russia and filed an application for divorce with the Moscow Civil Registry Office. The ex-wife filed a claim with the High Court of London in 2012 seeking for “more equitable” division of property.
This took place three days after her ex-husband had sold his stake in Northgas, an energy company, to Novatek for more than one billion dollars. He is now the 69th in the Russian Forbes list and has not yet given the 40% of his assets to his ex-wife according to the decision of the UK court.
Source: bfm.ru