CEO Freedom Holding Corp. Timur Turlov told Kursiv.media that his lawyers will challenge a legal decision by the court of arbitration in the Nizhny Novgorod region that has seized a set of assets belonging to the entrepreneur. The court has seized several properties and $21 million in cash belonging to Turlov and some of his co-defendants. It’s unclear how much money of the seized funds belongs directly to Turlov. The businessman underscored that the court’s decision wouldn’t cause any consequences for his core business because it has no business or property relations with Russia.
«This situation is absurd. Of course, we will challenge this case in court. I came to learn about the case from the media last week. I have no relations with the Russian bank the court mentions. This situation will not affect either our international business or our projects in Kazakhstan because our holding no longer controls any assets in Russia,» Turlov explained.
On March 13, the Russian state corporation called Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) reported that the arbitration court of the Nizhny Novgorod region admitted its complaint against several individuals who allegedly participated in asset withdrawal from Assotsiatsiya Bank. Turlov was mentioned as one of the defendants.
In late July 2019, the Bank of Russia took a license from Assotsiatsiya Bank due to violations of accounting rules. After an examination authorities discovered a shortage of $41 million in Assotsiatsiya’s accounts in foreign banks. This sum was twice as big as the bank’s capital.
At the time, Assotsiatsiya reported that in conjunction with the Russian central bank, they discovered fraud by one of the bank’s employees. According to the bank’s website, that individual intentionally «falsified banking operations in the SWIFT system.» The bank said that law enforcement officials had stopped criminal activity and apologized for the incident. The bank was part of the deposit insurance system that secures 100% of deposits not bigger than 1.4 million rubles. According to the Russian regulator, the bank was ranked 170th in terms of assets in Russia.
In February, Freedom Holding Corp. controlled by Turlov closed a deal selling its Russian business and stopping all work in Russia. Russian assets of Freedom have been sold to Maxim Povalishin, a former deputy head and member of the board of Freedom Finance Russia. Later, companies acquired by Povalishin conducted rebranding and were renamed Cifra (Cifra Broker and Cifra Bank).
In June 2022, Turlov obtained Kazakhstani nationality, abandoning citizenship of Russian and Saint Kitts and Nevis.
