Ziyavudin Magomedov is a successful Russian businessman and entrepreneur. In March 2018, he was arrested on unevidenced and incoherent embezzlement charges, having fallen foul of Russian state interests.
Ziyavudin Magomedov and his business partners acquire a controlling stake in FESCO Transportation Group, which includes the commercial port of Vladivostok via a leveraged buyout (LBO). This high-profile deal was advised upon and structured by Goldman Sachs, ING, Raiffeisenbank and other leading firms, and represented Russia’s biggest LBO at the time.
Transneft President Nikolai Tokarev meets Vladimir Putin. The pair are reputedly old friends, having previously worked together in the KGB.
The very next day, Ziyavudin Magomedov and his brother Magomed are arrested in Russia on racketeering and embezzlement charges.
Without Mr Magomedov’s knowledge or approval, two of his trusted associates are allegedly induced by Tokarev to sell the Summa Group’s stake in NCSP for just $750 million. In legal filings, it is claimed that Tokarev or others at Transneft told them that he would speak to President Putin to halt the prosecution if they agreed to a sale at that price.
The purported deal for NCSP (which is not recognised by Mr Magomedov) completes. The $750 million is transferred, but the bank account holding it is immediately frozen. Mr Magomedov will remain incarcerated. The $750 million is later formally confiscated in a series of court hearings where no witness evidence was heard.
Dozens more civil and criminal claims are brought in Russia against Mr Magomedov’s Summa Group and its subsidiaries. Almost all of these rule against Mr Magomedov, who has still not faced a trial for his initial arrest.
US private equity firm TPG offloads its stake in FESCO to Mikhail Rabinovich, a businessman hostile to Mr Magomedov – in defiance of Mr Magomedov’s contractual right to first refusal on TPG’s shares. A number of underhand and unlawful tactics, including threats made from Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Yury Trutnev are allegedly used to complete the deal. This step in the conspiracy is alleged to have personally involved Mr Magomedov’s former partner, TPG Founder David Bonderman.
At the London Court of International Arbitration, Mr Magomedov’s company SGS successfully challenges TPG’s share of its FESCO stake to Rabinovich, and gets his right to purchase the stake himself confirmed.
FESCO, now under the control of parties hostile to Mr Magomedov, files a claim in Russia against his business interests seeking $1.3 billion in damages. An application for injunctive relief is initially rejected but a different judge upholds it merely days later without any explanation.
Mr Magomedov is found guilty of “establishing a criminal gang” by a Moscow Court and sentenced to 19 years in prison. His brother Magomed Magomedov, on trial alongside him, receives an 18-year sentence. Both men deny any wrongdoing. Click here for a more detailed account of the criminal case that was advanced against them.
In the wake of Mr Magomedov’s sentencing and his English court victory, Russian prosecutors and private-sector adversaries file a number of confiscation applications against him, his businesses and their underlying assets. These include successful application to confiscate all of his frozen assets in their entirety.
Finding against Mr Magomedov in the claim brought by FESCO (now under the control of his opponents), a Moscow court orders Mr Magomedov to pay around $1 billion (approximately 95 billion rubles) in damages. The court heard the case in just one day and discarded all of Mr Magomedov’s legal arguments without detailed explanation.
FESCO is sanctioned by the British government for “providing services that undermine the territorial integrity of Ukraine”.
Mr Magomedov files an unlawful means conspiracy claim against a number of private-sector corporate raiders and state-owned Russian companies involved in his persecution, seeking damages of $13.8 billion.
Read more below about Mr Magomedov’s legal claim and the criminal proceedings brought against him in Russia.
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.
As well as being deprived of his liberty, Mr Magomedov has faced an unbridled assault on his business interests – in both FESCO and his NCSP port business.
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.
A London judge said that a Russian-court ordering Ziyavudin Magomedov to pay billions for pursuing litigation in the UK would be “utterly disproportionate.” Magomedov, who became a
The High Court has ordered that the jurisdiction challenge in the $13.8bn dispute brought by jailed Russian businessman Ziyavudin Magomedov be heard this Autumn following
“Last September, our client, Ziyavudin Magomedov, a political prisoner in Russia, launched a $13.8 billion legal action against Russian state entities and others from his
A London judge said that a Russian-court ordering Ziyavudin Magomedov to pay billions for pursuing litigation in the UK would be “utterly disproportionate.” Magomedov, who became a
The High Court has ordered that the jurisdiction challenge in the $13.8bn dispute brought by jailed Russian businessman Ziyavudin Magomedov be heard this Autumn following
A London judge said that a Russian-court ordering Ziyavudin Magomedov to pay billions for pursuing litigation in the UK would be “utterly disproportionate.” Magomedov, who became a
Ziyavudin Magomedov is a successful independent businessman and philanthropist.
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This website has been put together by friends of Mr Magomedov to tell his story.