Russia arrests billionaire, seizes illegally privatized companies
ChEMK, Kuznetsk Ferroalloys, and the Serov Ferroalloy Plant have all been transferred back to state ownership as the court ruled on the illegality of their privatization in the post-Soviet Union era. | Russian police in Chelyabinsk Region arrested Yury Antipov, who was listed in Forbes's latest Russian billionaires list, yesterday after a regional court seized three of his companies due to claimed irregularities with their privatization in the 1990s. ● The local outlet 74.ru announced the arrest, citing a source in one of his companies, the Chelyabinsk electro-metallurgy combine (ChEMK), but Antipov's charges are still ambiguous. ● Earlier in the day, a court in Sverdlovsk Region ruled that Antipov's companies were illegally privatized after the dismantling of the Soviet Union and issued an order for the transfer of his companies, ChEMK, Kuznetsk Ferroalloys, and the Serov Ferroalloy Plant back to state ownership.
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