A criminal case has actually been instituted against the former governor of the Chelyabinsk region, Boris Tass, FAS chief Igor Artemyev, confirmed during a working trip to Crimea. “As far as I know, a criminal case has been opened. As far as I know, it is being actively investigated, ”he said, answering the question of initiating a case on the basis of the FAS audit.
The fact that a criminal case was instituted against Dubrovsky on Friday, October 11, said lawyer Igor Trunov. According to him, the investigative department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs opened a case under part 2 of art. 285 of the Criminal Code (abuse of power). Damage in the case of embezzlement of budget money is estimated at more than 20 billion rubles., Noted Trunov.
Trunov does not work as a lawyer for Dubrovsky. He represented the interests of another ex-governor of the Chelyabinsk region - Mikhail Yurevich, who led the region in 2010–2014. and was a defendant in a bribe case. Dubrovsky’s lawyer Rustam Kurmaev, commenting on Trunov’s statement, said he did not know about the initiation of the case. “We were extremely surprised that some lawyer [Trunov], who has nothing to do with us, is giving comments,” he said.
In March of this year, the FAS announced that it had discovered two anti-competitive agreements in the Chelyabinsk region. The first of them is between Dubrovsky, the ministry of road facilities and transport in the region, as well as JSC Yuzhuralmost. The result of this agreement was that competition was limited in the market for construction, reconstruction and repair of roads in the region, the regulator noted. In fact, the service emphasized, from 2015 to 2018 more than 90% of the contracts related to road construction were concluded with Yuzhuralmost JSC, which became a monopolist in this area.
The regional government promised to challenge the decision of the FAS in the Moscow Arbitration Court.
Dubrovsky became the head of the Chelyabinsk region in 2014. This year he fell under the spring wave of governor resignations. A source close to the Kremlin, Vedomosti, said that a decisive argument in favor of the resignation was a review of its administration by the FAS, which revealed violations during regional tenders.