Dmitry Kostygin is no longer considered a fraud

The co-owner of Yulmart is changing the article of the Criminal Code.
05.02.2020
Kommersant
Origin source
The Main Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Investigative Committee in St. Petersburg has re-qualified the accusation of co-owner of Yulmart Dmitry Kostygin from large-scale fraud for causing damage without any signs of theft. This happened after the prosecutor's office twice returned the case for further investigation. Previously, the investigation believed that Dmitry Kostygin when providing him a loan of 1 billion rubles. deliberately misled Sberbank employees by not reporting past due obligations to other creditors.

According to Kommersant’s lawyer Konstantin Dobrynin, representing the interests of Dmitry Kostygin, the investigation acknowledged that the actions of his client did not show signs of a crime under Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code (fraud on a particularly large scale). Recall, according to investigators, in 2016 to conclude an agreement in the amount of 1 billion rubles. Yulmart provided the Sberbank with deliberately false information about the financial condition of the company: the company's documents stated that it had no past due financial obligations to other creditors. A criminal case against the entrepreneur was instituted at the request of Sberbank. In October 2017, the Smolninsky District Court of St. Petersburg sent co-owner Yulmart under house arrest, and at the end of 2018 released him on bail of 25 million rubles. Dmitry Kostygin and his lawyers from the very beginning argued that there was not only a corpus delicti, but also a crime event.

The investigator of the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee in St. Petersburg sent the case to the prosecutor twice for approval of the indictment, but both times he received it back: the supervisory authority did not see Kostygin’s actions as part of article 159 of the Criminal Code.

In the end, the TFR agreed with this and decided to raise the question of further jurisdiction of the case. “According to the investigator of the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Investigative Committee for St. Petersburg, there is no evidence of a crime under Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code, which we have always talked about, but the actions of the accused allegedly may contain signs of a crime under Part 2 of Art. 165 of the Criminal Code - "causing damage without signs of theft", which is also absurd. However, this crime falls within the competence of the investigating authorities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, ”said lawyer Konstantin Dobrynin.“ It’s time for the investigating authorities to stop abusing the right, in fact participating in a huge corporate dispute, and to dismiss the case. ”

Sberbank told Kommersant that since the preliminary investigation of the case has not been completed, any conclusions will be premature. It is worth noting that the credit institution managed to sue the amount of 1 billion rubles from the structures of Yulmart. in the Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region. At the same time, attempts to recover losses for a similar amount from the shareholders of Yulmart and the ex-CEO of the retailer failed.
Since 2016, Yulmart has been in a state of protracted conflict between majority shareholders Dmitry Kostygin and August Meyer (jointly own 61.5% of the retailer) and Mikhail Vasinkevich (38.5%). In July 2018, the London International Arbitration Court ordered the structures of Messrs. Kostygin and Meyer, through which they own a retailer, to redeem Mr. Vasinkevich’s share for $ 67 million.However, the deal did not take place: the parties accused her of frustrating each other. Final agreements on the settlement of the conflict between its participants, as Kommersant reported, have not been reached.

According to Mr. Dobrynin, in the near future all details can be agreed upon and a settlement agreement is signed between the parties to the joint dispute.
“It will end this corporate conflict, which has been going on for more than three years, and will open the way to options for ending the bankruptcy of Yulmart Group of Companies. We also hope that the end of the conflict will be followed by the termination of the illegally initiated criminal case, ”says Mr. Dobrynin. In A1 (the investment division of Alfa Group), Kommersant was told that in parallel with the negotiations, there is a process of foreclosure on assets controlled by Dmitry Kostygin, August Meyer and related parties. “Which of these processes will end first, it’s hard for us to say,” the representative of the investment company explained.

Against the backdrop of a corporate conflict and claims by creditors, the company lost ground in the market, moving from first to 17th place in the ranking of the largest online retailers Data Insight. At the end of last year, Yulmart optimized the business by closing all its own points of delivery of orders except for the object on Pulkovskoye Shosse.

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