He is on the list of 1,706 Russians affected by the 14 packages of European sanctions that have targeted Moscow since the start of the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Mikhail Maratovich Fridman, co-founder of the Alfa Group with a fortune estimated to be at least €11.3 billion, nevertheless benefited on April 10 from a favorable ruling by the European General Court. The judges determined that it could not be proven he supported the decision-makers responsible for the war in Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea.
On the strength of this ruling, the oligarch, described by the European Council as a close associate of President Vladimir Putin, now intends to take the next step: He is demanding that the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, which approved and implemented the European sanctions, return all his assets, as well as pay financial compensation for the "irreversible and catastrophic damage" suffered by his business. This amounts to a total of $16 billion (€14.5 billion).
Revealed on August 14 by the Brussels website EUobserver.com, the information has been confirmed in Luxembourg. Questioned by Le Monde, Prime Minister Luc Frieden's office gave a terse response: "Mr. Mikhail Fridman has initiated arbitration proceedings. The government is currently in the process of analyzing the claim and next steps with its legal advisers."
Since the early 2000s, the Russian billionaire had made Luxembourg the capital of his empire due to its "very good reputation for asset protection," his advisors stated in a bid for "fair and impartial" arbitration in Hong Kong.
The head of Alfa (banking and insurance), who is also an investor in telecommunications, energy, and water treatment, is demanding that the dispute be resolved under the rules of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). This body was set up in 1966 to harmonize and unify international trade law. He is assisted by a battery of law experts, the London-based law firm Omnia Strategy led by Cherie Blair, the wife of the former Labour prime minister and the Kiejman-Marembert firm in Paris.
The case is clearly embarrassing for the Grand Duchy, whose gross domestic product was €79.3 billion in 2023. Fridman's advisors claim that Luxembourg has violated the guarantees provided by a bilateral agreement made in 1989 with Moscow, which also protects his investments in several other countries: the UK, where the businessman lives in a mansion and where he founded the LetterOne investment fund, Ukraine, where he was born, as well as Germany, the Netherlands and Spain.
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