Russian billionaire couple fighting to get off Canada’s sanctions list – National | 24CA News
Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichenko and his spouse Aleksandra wish to be taken off Canada’s sanctions listing, claiming in Federal Court they’ve been wrongfully labelled as “elites and close associates” of the Russian regime.
The Melnichenkos filed two functions within the Federal Court of Canada in late March, looking for to quash a call to put them underneath sanctions associated to the battle in Ukraine.
Court paperwork obtained by The Canadian Press reveal that the pair have been combating their inclusion on Canada’s listing of “designated persons” underneath its Russian sanctions regime since October 2022.
Back in February, the Trudeau authorities introduced amendments to the Special Economic Measures (Russia) Regulations, which included inserting the Melnichenkos on an inventory of 122 sanctioned people tied to the federal government of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The couple declare the Canadian authorities has failed to offer them with any proof to justify their inclusion on the listing.
The listing consists of Russian elites and policymakers regarded as “engaged in activities that directly or indirectly facilitate, support, provide funding for or contribute to a violation or attempted violation of the sovereignty or territorial integrity of Ukraine.”
“Mr. Melnichenko does not have, and has not had, any association with the Government of Russia or President Putin,” Andrey Melnichenko’s software states. “He left Russia 20 years ago and has resided in Switzerland for the past 13 years. There is no reasonable basis for the Minister to believe otherwise.”
His spouse, a former mannequin and Serbian pop singer, claims she’s been wrongly focused by Canadian sanctions, since she has no ties to Russia and doesn’t have any involvement in corporations based by her husband.
Andrey Melnichenko speaks throughout an interview with The Associated Press at a lodge in the course of the COP27 U.N. Climate Summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2022.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Thomas Hartwell
The couple’s Canadian legal professionals, Scott Hutchison and Eleni Loutas with Henein Hutchison Robitaille LLP in Toronto, declined to touch upon their circumstances.
Andrey Melnichenko’s public relations director, Alexander Byrikhin, didn’t instantly reply to an emailed request for remark.
Global Affairs Canada stated in an emailed assertion that it “cannot release information on individuals or entities listed under the Special Economic Measures (Russia) or comment on individual cases.”
“In response to Russia’s illegal and unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine, Canada has imposed hard-hitting sanctions against the Russian regime and those who enable it,” the assertion stated.
Aleksandra Melnichenko claims in her software that she’s a European citizen with “no connections to Russia whatsoever.”
She denies any involvement in two corporations based by her husband, fertilizer agency EuroChem, and SUEK, a coal firm, each of that are owned by a belief administered within the European Union.
“She is merely a beneficiary of the discretionary trust managed by the independent trustee,” her software claims. “The latter is the legal owner of the named companies.”
In June 2022, EuroChem issued a “statement on ownership and control” following stories that Andrey Melnichenko had ceded possession within the agency to his spouse simply earlier than being sanctioned by the EU.
“EuroChem Group AG is not sanctioned, has never been sanctioned, and is free to continue with its important mission of supplying high-quality crop nutrients to world markets,” the assertion stated. “EuroChem is majority-owned and controlled by EU trustees of a trust, whose beneficiary, Aleksandra Melnichenko, has no majority ownership of, nor influence over, EuroChem. Therefore, EuroChem is not controlled by any sanctioned person.”
Aleksandra Melnichenko claims her “erroneous” inclusion on sanctions lists within the EU, Switzerland and Canada precipitated “difficulties for the companies’ operations worldwide, increasing the ongoing food and energy crisis.”
Andrey Melnichenko claims he’s been falsely portrayed as an “oligarch” in command of the businesses, inflicting manufacturing disruptions at services in Europe after he was sanctioned by the EU.
His court docket software warns of comparable “unintended consequences” in Canada, the place the Russian sanctions listing now consists of greater than 1,300 people.
It states that he’s not an oligarch however a “self-made businessman,” quoting a Forbes report referring to his fortune being made independently and freed from ties to the Russian authorities underneath each Putin and Boris Yeltsin.
Melnichenko sits at quantity 58 on Forbes’ billionaires listing with a web value of greater than $25 billion, which he amassed starting within the early Nineteen Nineties with a series of forex change cubicles, earlier than founding MDM Bank, and later EuroChem and SUEK.
“As has occurred in Europe, sanctioning Mr. Melnichenko could disrupt EuroChem and SUEK’s operations and detrimentally impact the global fertilizer supply which, in turn, has the potential to exacerbate the ongoing food shortage,” he claims in Federal Court.
Julia Webster, a Toronto-based worldwide commerce lawyer and companion at Baker McKenzie, stated Canada’s strategy to Russia contrasts with different nations at the moment underneath sanctions.
Unlike sanctions on Haiti, Myanmar, Iran and Sri Lanka, Canada’s sanctions on Russia characterize a “true decoupling of economies,” she stated, given the financial entanglements between western nations and Russia earlier than its invasion of Ukraine.
She stated Canada’s sanctions listing mirrors that of allied nations.
“The sanctions are being implemented in co-ordination with Canada’s allies,” Webster stated. “There is overlap on many of the prohibitions that are in place amongst the sanctions regimes between different countries and the people who are designated on those sanctions regimes, but there are also differences and Canada at this time seems to have actually one of the strictest regimes comparatively to its allies.”
In March 2022, the EU sanctioned Andrey Melnichenko, noting his attendance at a gathering held by Putin with Russian business leaders and oligarchs on the day of the invasion of Ukraine.
“The fact that he was invited to attend this meeting shows that he is a member of the closest circle of Vladimir Putin and that he is supporting or implementing actions or policies which undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine, as well as stability and security in Ukraine,” the EU stated.
Shortly after Andrey Melnichenko was sanctioned within the EU, Italian authorities seized the couple’s $600-million “Sailing Yacht A,” however their different vessel, Motor Yacht A, valued at $300 million, prevented the same destiny by docking within the United Arab Emirates on the time.
In August 2022, the United Stated designated Melnichenko as a “Putin enabler,” pointing to his previous involvement in Russia’s monetary providers sector.
“Listing carries serious social, economic and personal consequences,” the couple claims.
