CEO: New owner starts criminal case against former Amurstal execs

KHABAROVSK, Jul 15 (PRIME) -- The investigative authorities have launched a criminal case against Sergei Kuznetsov and Dmitry Kozlov, former CEO and deputy CEO for security of Russia’s far eastern electrometallurgical plant Amurstal on request from the current owner of the plant Pavel Balsky, CEO Grigory Freidin told reporters on Wednesday.

Amurstal, previously known as Amurmetall, is the only electrometallurgical plant in the Far East. Torex Group bought the plant in 2017 and became its strategic investor. In February 2020, Armada company of Pavel Balsky acquired 50% in the plant from Torex-Khabarovsk, and after that raised its stake to 75%. The remaining 25% is owned by Larisa Starodubova, the wife of Khabarovsk Region’s Governor Sergei Furgal who has been recently arrested with criminal charges.

A spokesperson for the Central Court of the city of Khabarovsk told PRIME that Kuznetsov and Kozlov were detained together with businessman Nikolai Shukov and Yevgeny Averyanov, CEO of construction company Dalnevostochny Monolit.

“These actions were caused by the fact that Balsky filed claims because of his suspicions and reasons to believe that the plant has been stripped of some working capital and loans it raised. I suppose that law enforcement authorities found enough proof that these claims were grounded as these arrests happened six to seven months after filing of the claims in January,” Freidin said.

About eight weeks ago, the law enforcers questioned employees of the plant following the claims. The authorities have not questioned any new people after the detentions, he said.

Freidin said that Furgal’s arrest would have no impact on operations of the plant. Under the law, the powers of a general meeting of shareholders – Armada and Larisa Starodubova – do not cover plant’s operations, but only approval of large deals and conduction of annual meetings, he said.

All court disputes on the change of management did not favor Starodubova, and the new management remains in power. “There were two court hearings that challenged the decision of the shareholder meeting, and they challenged even the fact of Armada’s purchase of Mistryukov’s (co-founder of Torex) stake. In both cases, the court made a decision that did not favor Starodubova,” he said.

Freidin has not seen Furgal at the plant since 2018, he said.

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