Premiere in the Ukraine conflict: oligarch superyacht comes under the hammer
Created: 06/27/2022, 13:53
By: Markus Hofstetter
In March, the yacht of a Russian oligarch was arrested.
Now he could finally lose it, because the luxury ship is to come under the hammer.
Gibraltar - Yachts owned by billionaire supporters of Russian President Vladimir Putin are targets of Western sanctions.
In April, for example, the "Dilbar" was arrested in the port of Hamburg. The ship belongs to the sister of the Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov, Gulbakhor Ismailova.
According to Bloomberg, Finland alone has confiscated 21 such luxury vehicles.
Ships allegedly belonging to Russian oligarchs are also stranded in Spain and Italy.
Auction of oligarch yacht: confiscated ships cost the authorities dearly
One of the confiscated ships could now be auctioned off.
This emerges from a report by the YouTube channel "Esysman Superyachts".
This is the 73 meter long "Axioma" of the Russian businessman Dimitri Pumpianski, which was arrested in Gibraltar at the end of March 2022.
By order of the Supreme Court of the British Overseas Territory, the yacht is now going under the hammer.
The superyacht Axioma has been moored in Gibraltar since March 2022 (archive photo from 2019) © Giovanni Romero/imago
The Gibraltar authorities will hear this decision with relief.
Because a confiscated ship is expensive.
The
FAZ
reports that just the maintenance of the "Sailing Yacht A", which was confiscated by Italy, costs 20,000 euros - per day.
The problem is that the state cannot simply sell an appointed superyacht.
First the legal questions have to be clarified, which can take a long time.
This puts a considerable strain on public coffers.
Auction of oligarch yacht: Case cannot be generalized
But the case of the "Axioma" is not a blueprint for other confiscated ships.
Because according to the YouTube channel report, the 71 million euro ship belongs to Putin supporter Pumpianski, but is maintained by Pyrene Investments.
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The US bank JPMorgan has granted this management company a loan of 21 million euros.
Since this money cannot be repaid due to the sanctions against the oligarch, the US bank has gone to court.
This gave JPMorgan the right to sell the ship to cover the loan.
However, the date of the start of the auction and the amount of the starting price are not yet known.
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Oligarch yachts on the run: Ships are taken to safe countries
It's arguably a painful loss for Pumpianski, who
Stern
says made his estimated $2.2 billion in personal fortune in the oil and gas industry.
Also because other oligarchs managed to get their luxury ships to safety.
A popular destination for them is Turkey, since Ankara has not imposed sanctions on Russia.
This means that the yachts in Turkish waters are safe from confiscation.
Russian oligarch Dimitri Pumpianski is likely to lose his superyacht “Axioma” (archive photo from 2021) © Pavel Lisitsyn/imago
So Roman Abramovich brought two of his yachts to the country.
The Maldives in the Indian Ocean and the Balkan state of Montenegro also seem to be escape destinations.
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mh
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