Russian billionaire’s luxury Riviera villa continues to feel the freeze
RUSSIAN billionaire Alexander Ponomarenko has lost his bid to lift the asset freeze of a villa he bought over a decade ago for 83.5 million euros (S$119.8 million).
His lost lawsuit comes nearly 10 months after he became one of the first Russian tycoons owning luxury real estate in the South of France to be sanctioned following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s move to invade Ukraine.
With four acres of land and a direct sea view, the Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat property is situated in perhaps France’s most expensive location, a magnet for royals, Hollywood icons and technology billionaires.
The Paris administrative court was not swayed in a Dec 2 ruling by complaints that the resources of the French civil company (SCI) used as a vehicle to own the property had been cut off after Switzerland froze its sole bank account. Neither was it swayed by claims that renovation works had to be halted due to the sanctions.
The judges pointed out that the firm still has a wealthy backer whose hands are not tied: the mother of Ponomarenko’s children, who currently owns 95 per cent of the company’s shares, and “whose very significant economic resources are not frozen, apart from those possessed within the framework of the SCI La Chabanne Project”.
Ponomarenko is not the first Russian to try – with varying degrees of success – to challenge in local courts the implementation of European Union sanctions. Yet the real fight over the validity of these measures is likely to play out in front of EU judges, with the review of challenges by the likes of Roman Abramovich, Andrey Melnichenko and Mikhail Fridman.
In France, billionaire Alexey Kuzmichev last week scored a symbolic victory in a fight with French customs over the raid of his two Riviera yachts, but he had previously lost a dispute with the government over its decision to reveal the location of his Paris home.
Following the dismissal of Ponomarenko’s bid for an urgent ruling, a different chamber is expected to examine the substance of his arguments. A lawyer for the billionaire did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit. BLOOMBERG
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