A High Court trial began on July 5 involving two Virgin Islands-registered companies that are attempting to block their records from being transferred to the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation — the country’s main investigative authority — on the grounds that the companies are connected to a chemical firm that’s the target of alleged “corporate raiding” by a Russian oligarch.
The case stems from a search warrant Magistrate Ayanna Baptiste-DaBreo granted in January 2016 for the Financial Investigation Agency to obtain all records for the companies Magnum Investment Trading Corporation and Niteroi Limited, and to transfer them to the ICRF.
The search warrant was granted because Russian authorities claimed in their letter of request that the records could contain information about the activities of three individuals under investigation for allegedly stealing $3 billion from the Russian chemical company TogliattiAzot between January 2008 and December 2011, court documents state.
Those three individuals allegedly transferred TogliattiAzot shares to Magnum and Niteroi in December 2012, which makes the records of those companies “very important to the case,” Russian authorities claim.
However, attorneys for Magnum and Niteroi strongly deny any connection to criminal activity, making their own allegations that corrupt Russian officials have targeted TogliattiAzot with bogus legal proceedings in other courts around the world for years, all in an attempted hostile takeover of the company.
As such, the lawsuit seeks a court order prohibiting the VI government from transferring the companies’ records to Russia, as well as an order to have the records — which the FIA obtained when it executed the search warrant in January 2016 — returned.
At last week’s trial, Monica Carss-Frisk QC, a United Kingdom-based attorney representing the companies, reiterated many of the claims in her clients’ lawsuit against government.
“The [ICRF’s] letter of request doesn’t establish that there were reasonable grounds to suspect that the alleged offence of swindling or theft has been committed,” Ms. Carss-Frisk said, adding, “There were no reasonable grounds to believe that [Magnum and Nieteroi’s company records] related to the offence, even if we accept — which we don’t — that there were reasonable grounds to suspect an offence in the first place.”
UK-based attorney Hefin Rees represented government, arguing that his client followed proper procedures for obtaining the companies’ documents, which have yet to be delivered to the ICRF pending the outcome of this trial.
“We were simply carrying out our international treaty obligations in compliance with the United Nations Convention against Corruption,” he stated.
The two-day trial ended last Thursday, and High Court Justice Vicki Ann Ellis reserved her decision for a later date.