The Court of Appeal of the High Court of London refused to consider the complaint from businessman and former deputy head of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation Alexey Bazhanov, who is hiding in the British capital from the Russian police. He tried to obtain a £ 30m loan from the structures of the owner of the St. Petersburg holding Blago Arkady Fosman as compensation for the assets of the holding company Masloprodukt, which belonged to a fugitive official. The British courts considered that the proceedings in England would not be in the jurisdiction of the defendants. Mr. Bazhanov promised to continue the struggle "in all available instances", and in Russia he hopes to bring him to subsidiary liability for more than 10 billion rubles. debts of the companies "Masloprodukta" to banks.

Representatives of the "Blago" holding told "Kommersant" that the court refused to consider the claim on July 4. "The decision is formulated briefly - there are no real grounds for considering the complaint," the company noted. Thus, the decision of the first instance of half a year ago was confirmed, which withdrew its consent to the consideration of Alexey Bazhanov's lawsuit against the structures of Arkady Fosman and the businessman himself. "The High Court found that it has no right to consider the claim, because it is beyond the jurisdiction of the defendants," Blago reported. "Bazhanov has already paid 220,000 pounds of legal expenses."

The former deputy minister claimed £ 30 million for the assets of Bloch, which had previously belonged to the now-bankrupt company Masloprodukt. The key asset of the group of companies is a large oil extraction plant in the Verkhnekhavsky district of the Voronezh region. Investments in its construction became the occasion for a number of major proceedings, including criminal cases against Mr. Bazhanov and former managers of "Masloprodukt." The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation has been investigating fraudulent thefts of more than 10 billion rubles since 1993, according to policemen, Alexei Bazhanov. on the supply of equipment and raw materials for this enterprise. Rosagroleasing state corporation, deceived by more than 1 billion rubles, as well as Rosselkhozbank, Moscow Industrial Bank and Svyaz-Bank, the largest victim (the damage is a bit more than 9 billion rubles), are recognized as victims.

Two persons involved in the proceedings - the former head of the controlled subsidiary "Vegetable Oil" LLC "Vita" Sergei Tsvetkov and ex-lawyer of the holding Denis Kurilov - have already received various terms. Remained former employees of "Masloprodukt" Roman Malov and Sergei Dudenkov remain in custody, while the main financier of the company Olga Yaudzemis and actually Alexei Bazhanov are on the wanted list. In April this year, the court, on the petition of the investigation, extended until August the arrest of accounts belonging to him, his wife and his 22-year-old son Nicholas in Switzerland. We are talking about dozens of deposits in Union Bancaire Privee, RBC Coutts Bank, LGT Bank and Deutsche Bank representative office, opened personally for Mr. Bazhanov's family members and for various British, Swiss and Luxembourg companies, as well as for companies resident in the British Virgin Islands islands and Cyprus.

It is noteworthy that the representatives of the defense of Alexei Bazhanov in Russia continue to insist in courts on the complete failure of all charges and actions of the investigation. They refer to the fact that the correctness of the former official has been confirmed by numerous court decisions. This completely contradicts the position of the representatives of Arkady Fosman, who argue that most of the bankrupt cases of "Masloprodukt" are almost completed. "The question, in fact, is only whether the runaway businessman will be involved in subsidiary liability for the debts of" Masloprodukt "," the Blago Holding Company notes.

Alexei Bazhanov himself told Kommersant that he does not intend to surrender and will continue litigation with Mr. Fosman in "all possible instances": "I insist that he fraudulently seized my assets: he initially signed an agreement on equity participation in the holding, and then refused to fulfill his obligations. "