The Tambov District Court of the Tambov Region, at the request of the Prosecutor General's Office, recognized alcohol businessman Yuri Shefler and his foreign legal entities as an “extremist association.” Interfax reports this.
Later, the press service of the courts of the Tambov region called the information about the satisfaction of the claim of the Prosecutor General's Office false. Shefler’s lawyer Alexander Asnis told RBC that “the trial in this case is scheduled for July 23.”
According to Interfax, the prosecutor's office claims in the lawsuit that the businessman «encourages shelling of Russian regions by the Ukrainian army» and his companies «finance the Ukrainian fund, which directs funds to the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.»
Shefler's assets in Russia were nationalized.
The Luxembourg company Amber Beverage Group Holdings, of which Scheffler is the beneficiary, owns 72.9% of the Amber Talvis distillery in the suburbs of Tambov, in the working-class village of Novaya Lyada. Another 25.5% belongs to Rosspirtprom.
As RBC notes, the plant supplies alcohol to Shefler's alcohol holding SPI Group, which produces Riga balsam and vodka under the Stoli and Moskovskaya brands in Latvia.
Shefler also owns a plant in Kaliningrad that has not been operating since 2012.
The lawsuit was registered in the Tambov District Court on June 21. At the same time, the court seized assets associated with Shefler in Russia.
The businessman became famous for purchasing the rights to the Stolichnaya and Moskovskaya vodka brands. In 1997, he became president of the state company Soyuzplodoimport, which owned Soviet vodka brands, created his own company with an almost identical name and sold it the rights to the names for 300 thousand euros. The Accounts Chamber recognized the value as underestimated, and the arbitration court recognized the state's right to these brands. Shefler and the Russian authorities have repeatedly sued in foreign courts over the right to use the brand in Western markets.
Yesterday, a similar practice — recognition as an “extremist association” and seizure of property in an administrative lawsuit — was used against the family of Alexander and Lydia Nevzorov. According to the prosecutor's office, their plots and other property were used “to carry out extremist activities.”
Updated at 22:57. Information has been added that the claim of the Prosecutor General's Office has not yet been considered. The news title has been changed.