Oligarch circumvents sanctions with tricks

Is Switzerland ignoring an oligarch? Many of the super-rich Russians are currently on the EU’s sanctions list and are also sanctioned by Switzerland. Some sold their shares or the entire company so that the companies they control would not suffer too much. As in the case of Roman Abramovich (55), who had to sell his Chelsea football club.

Others seem to get away with it more easily, as “Tagesanzeiger” suspects. Even Russian billionaire Andrei Melnitschenko (50) and his wife Alexandra (45) can circumvent sanctions with Swiss help.

Russian, St. Moritz lives in GR and is the founder of Zug-based Eurochem. The company is one of the most important fertilizer producers in the world. Like many other oligarchs, Melnichenko complied with Vladimir Putin’s (70) request to meet with the Russian president in Moscow shortly after the outbreak of war. The purpose of the event: support for Putin’s war.

wife takes over

Most of the participants were immediately placed on the various sanctions lists of the EU and Switzerland. Although Melnichenko relinquished control of the company, he transferred it to his wife Alexandra. When the maneuver was exposed, there was great outrage around the world, and his wife was also on the sanctions lists. But unlike her husband, she did not have to part with the shares, apparently even controlling a well-known block of shares in Eurochem directly through a shell company in Cyprus. According to the “Tagesanzeiger”, Switzerland has officially approved the maneuver. On the grounds that Eurochem is not covered by the sanctions.

Some EU countries and also some European banks are much stricter. Switzerland is “neither legally nor politically obligated to participate in EU sanctions or their enforcement by individual member states,” reports the “Tagesanzeiger” newspaper of the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco).

Fencing instead of selling

The newspaper suspects that the so-called “perimeter fence” was the reason why the oligarch’s wife did not have to leave her shares in Eurochem. The point here is that a sanctioned person does not receive any funds from the company, such as paying dividends. The advantage of this “fence”: Although there is no flow of money, a complete sale of shares is not necessary to protect the company at the same time.

This puts the Melnichenkos in a better position than other oligarchs who have had to completely divest themselves from their companies and even football clubs. While it is unclear whether Switzerland is helping such a trick, this suspicion alone causes indignation in the federal government of Bern: “If dividends are not paid, this makes the trust of the company and therefore its shares more valuable. FDP Chairman Thierry Burkart (47)” The beneficiary of the trust still benefits from the mere delay of dividend distribution,” writes Tagesanzeiger. (co)