The UK government has imposed sanctions on Chelsea football club director Eugene Tenenbaum in an attempt to freeze up to £ 10 billion in assets linked to the club’s owner, Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich.
The United Kingdom has said it is extending sanctions on Tenenbaum and David Davidovich, another close aide to Abramovich, because the oligarch transferred billions of pounds of assets to the couple when Russia invaded Ukraine.
The State Department said the sanctions would “freeze the couple’s assets, valued at up to £ 10 billion – the largest asset freeze in the UK’s history”. The ministry said the asset freeze “would prevent those assets from being repatriated to Russia and used to fund Putin’s military machine.”
“We are tightening the ratchet mechanism of Putin’s military machine and targeting the circle of people closest to the Kremlin,” said Foreign Minister Liz Truss. “We will continue to impose sanctions until Putin fails in Ukraine. Nothing and no one is off the table. “
The United Kingdom has said sanctions have been agreed with Jersey, which froze £ 5.4 billion in Abramovich’s assets yesterday.
Abramovich was subjected to UK sanctions on March 10th after ministers accused him of having “clear ties” to Putin’s regime and of being among a group of wealthy Russian businessmen with “blood on their hands”. He denied having close ties to Putin.
However, the United Kingdom has not seized any of Abramovich’s properties in the United Kingdom, which include a £ 120 million mansion in Kensington Palace, just behind the Royal Palace. His family has amassed a collection of more than 250 million pounds of property in the United Kingdom, numbering about 70 homes, buildings and plots of land. The United Kingdom is forcing him to sell Chelsea FC, which he bought in 2003 for around £ 140 million.
Corporate documents show that Tenenbaum took control of Evrington Investments Ltd, an affiliate of Abramovich’s investment company, on February 24, immediately after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Earlier, Abramovich was named as a “beneficiary” of Cyprus-based Ervington, according to documents in London and Amsterdam. The company has invested in at least eight companies, including Russia’s best search engine Yandex.
Also on the first day of the invasion, Abramovich transferred control of another investment mechanism, Norma Investments, to Davidovic. The Foreign Ministry said that Davidovic, who was described by Forbes magazine as “Abramovich’s right hand with a much lower profile”, “took over Evrington Investments from Tenenbaum in March 2022.”
Men will be subject to asset freezes as well as transport sanctions, which means that any ship or aircraft owned, rented, controlled or operated by them can be detained if it enters the UK.
Tenenbaum, 57, was born in Ukraine when he was part of the Soviet Union and has been on the Chelsea board for 19 years. He was previously head of corporate finance at Sibneft, an oil company sold in 2006 by Abramovich.
Earlier, he described the sanctions against Abramovich as “unfair”. The Guardian turned to Tenenbaum and Davidovich for comment.
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