The Prosecutor General's Office demands that three Chelyabinsk factories be transferred to state ownership. The Kommersant newspaper reported on the details of the claim filed with the Arbitration Court of the Sverdlovsk Region.
On February 9, the court arrested the shares of the Etalon Company, which owns the assets of the industrial group ChEMK, belonging to Yuri and Lyudmila Antipov. It includes the Chelyabinsk Electrometallurgical Plant, as well as the Serov and Kuznetsk Ferroalloy Plants.
ChEMK is the largest producer of ferroalloys in Russia, “capable of fully meeting the needs of the domestic metallurgy,” says the group’s website. The Prosecutor General's Office emphasized that the ferroalloys produced by ChEMK are used in the production of high-quality steel for military equipment, projectiles and aircraft engines.
The lawsuit states that the factories “were part of a closely related cooperative group with defense enterprises for the production of weapons systems and elements,” writes Kommersant.
According to the supervisory agency, the privatization of three factories was approved by the Sverdlovsk Regional Committee for State Property Management, which “clearly acted in excess of authority.” According to the lawsuit, in 1993–1999, the committee, together with the regional property fund, distributed 100% of the shares of factories “that did not belong to them.”
In 2023, Yuriy Antipov, according to the prosecutor’s office, registered the assets with Etalon, after which the plants “of strategic importance for ensuring the defense and security of the country” came “under the control of residents of unfriendly states,” including the Canadian-Swiss company RFA International.
Under the control of this supplier, according to the department, alloys “to the detriment of national interests” were exported at a reduced price to the USA, France and the UK, which “have an aggressive policy” towards Russia and send weapons to Ukraine.
Representatives of the defendant noted that CHEMK is not part of the military-industrial complex, but only supplies alloys to enterprises, which, in turn, send them to defense plants. According to the general director of the holding, Pavel Khodorovsky, the same privatization scheme as at the three factories was used “in absolutely all regions of Russia.”
Previously, the courts satisfied the claims of the Prosecutor General’s Office to return the companies Volzhsky Orgsintez, “ Metafrax Chemicals» and other large plants. The appeals were also caused by violations during privatization.