Petersburg court deprived the hope of "St. Petersburg" signalmen

    The Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region did not consider the IPOC fund’s lawsuit against CT-Mobile, through which Alfa-Group owns a 25.1% stake in MegaFon. The court agreed with the position of CT-Mobile that the consideration of the claim should be transferred to the Arbitration Court of the Khanty-Mansiysk District. The fact is that formally “CT-Mobile” is registered in this particular district, more precisely, in Nizhnevartovsk.

    Change of court, which will consider this dispute, radically changes the position of the parties. Alfa was afraid that a group of St. Petersburg signalmen would be able to put pressure on the St. Petersburg court, and in this connection they even filed a counterclaimto IPOC at the place of its registration in Bermuda, having achieved a temporary ban on the fund continuing to sue Megafon shares in St. Petersburg. Due to this prohibition, the trial took place in the absence of the IPOC initiating it.

    “Choosing an IPOC venue in St. Petersburg is no coincidence,” Alpha lawyer Christopher Hardman said during a hearing in Bermuda. - The owner of IPOC, the current Minister of Information Technology and Communications of Russia Leonid Reiman ( as Alpha thinks, Reiman and IPOC deny this assertion - author's note ) comes from there, and he managed to achieve his initial success precisely due to his great connections in this the city. In fact, the right place for the trial would be Moscow, where Megafon or Khanty-Mansiysk is registered. ”

    In the IPOC itself, they expressed satisfaction that the dispute was moved to another region. However, earlier in the IPOC they already expressed their distrust of the Khanty-Mansiysk court, which in 2004, considering one aspect of the same Megafon case, granted the suit of Alpha . Then, the IPOC explained this court decision to the fact that Alfa Group has significant influence in Khanty-Mansiysk and controls the main company in the region - the oil company TNK-Nizhnevartovsk.

    It is worth noting that the St. Petersburg court was almost the last hope of the "Petersburg" for the restoration of control over the "Megaphone". Since 2003, when Alpha acquired the “ill-fated” 25.1% stake in the mobile operator, IPOC tried to prove its rights to this package in courts of various countries around the world, appealing to the option agreement previously concluded with the previous owner of these shares. However, in May, the International Arbitration Tribunal in Zurich declared the option illegal . But in parallel with this, IPOC filed a new lawsuit - to the St. Petersburg court, and, unlike its previous claims, it demanded not to exercise the option, but to revise in its favor the agreement on the creation of Megaphone concluded between its shareholders in 2002. In this situation, IPOC still has some hope for a court in New York, in which it also recently filed a lawsuit against Alpha and also with new demands: in America, IPOC accuses Alpha of fraudulently obtaining Megafon shares .

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