Persecution of Summa Group

Ziyavudin Magomedov was arrested with his brother Magomed in March 2018.

As well as being deprived of his liberty, Mr Magomedov has faced an unbridled assault on his business interests, not remotely justified by any evidence nor even by the logic of the criminal prosecution’s case.

In 2018, a Russian court froze a long list of assets with a collective value of several billion dollars – dwarfing the $180 million damage alleged in the criminal proceedings. In 2022, and without hearing any witness evidence, a separate order was made seizing $750 million at Sberbank belonging to Mr Magomedov and his family – the proceeds of his forced sale of the NCSP port business to Transneft. An additional $150 million which was due to be paid to one of Mr Magomedov’s subsidiaries was also confiscated from NCSP’s holding company in December 2022. 

Following Mr Magomedov’s conviction in December 2022, the Russian prosecutor applied to confiscate all frozen assets in their entirety. This is despite the hugely greater value of those assets compared to the alleged criminal damage; and the fact that, according to Mr Magomedov’s submissions in various civil proceedings, the prosecutor has presented absolutely no evidence to substantiate an allegation that the frozen assets represent the proceeds of the crimes allegedly committed (or any crime).

Since December 2022, other civil cases have been brought to add to this alleged legal persecution, including additional claims on Mr Magomedov’s assets from the Russian prosecutor and private-sector corporate raiders conspiring with state entities. Many of these actions target Mr Magomedov’s interests in FESCO in particular, as well as those of other FESCO shareholders.

Mr Magomedov and his legal representatives have consistently fought these unlawful attacks on his assets. Inside Russia, he is appealing the confiscations. A number of his assets are also governed by legal codes outside Russia, and he has used the impartial arbitral and court systems of the UK and the British Virgin Islands successfully to defend his legal rights.

In September 2023, Mr Magomedov’s lawyers filed a major civil action in the UK High Court against a host of parties inside and outside Russia whom they accuse of working together to steal his assets in an unlawful means conspiracy.

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Following his arrest in 2018, Mr Magomedov was held for almost five years without a trial, before being convicted in December 2022 by a Moscow judge whose verdict uncritically parroted the prosecution’s case.

In a wide-ranging claim filed at the English High Court, Mr Magomedov and his representatives accuse a number of parties – both western corporations and entities linked to the Russian state – of unlawfully conspiring against him and his business interests.

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