A Cypriot court has frozen $820 million of assets belonging to Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest man and the owner of the incumbent telco Ukrtelecom.
According to the FT, this follows a dispute with Raga Establishment, a group owned by the former Ukrainian banker Denis Gorbunenko, which sold the telco to Akhmetov for $860 million in 2013.
It claims that Akhmetov paid $100 million upfront for the deal but nothing since. Raga won a similar claim against Akhmetov at the London Court of International Arbitration in June last year.
In this instance Akhmetov has the right to appeal against the freeze. FT points out that Akhmetov’s ownership of Ukrtelecom is being challenged by the Ukrainian government, which would like to renationalise the company.
Ukrtelecom was initially sold to Vienna-based Epic Investments for $1.3 billion in 2011.
