Lukashenko's "seized" Plant From A Private Citizen Is Suing A Russian Firm
- 29.05.2025, 16:42
Trying to pay back millions of dollars in debts.
"Motovelozavod has twice sued the Smolensk-based company Phoenix over debts for supplies. This follows from the data on court hearings published on legat.by. Despite the court decisions and requests to Russia, more than 2 million rubles have not yet been paid. The probability of getting them is decreasing because the firm's accounts have been blocked and its liquidation has begun, writes "Zerkalo".
Over the past year, the company has twice sued the Russian company Phoenix over settlement debts. In May last year, the Economic Court of Minsk ruled that the Russians must pay the debt under the contract for December 2021 in the amount of 28 million Russian rubles. And in March of this year - it was about the amount of 36 million Russian rubles. This is just over 1.05 million and about 1.36 million Belarusian rubles, respectively, at the exchange rate of the National Bank on May 29 this year.
In January of this year, the Belarusian court filed an application to the Russian colleagues with a request to serve the company from this country with a court order just for the amount of 36 million Russian rubles.
But they failed: the letter sent to the firm was returned with a note "for the expiration of the period of storage". And representatives of "Phoenix" did not appear at the meeting. As a result, the Arbitration Court of the Smolensk region recognized the execution of the court order as impossible for reasons beyond the control of the court (impossibility to deliver the correspondence). It also ruled to send the appropriate ruling to the Economic Court of Minsk.
It is likely that the Minsk plant will not see the payments due to it. The fact is that the firm will be liquidated. In addition, on April 26 this year, its accounts were blocked due to the lack of tax reporting.
The history of the plant: privatized and then taken away
The predecessor of Motovelozavod was Motovelo, privatized by businessman Alexander Muravyov. But after his company failed to cope with financial difficulties in a short period of time and to meet the forecast figures set by officials, the company was nationalized.
The businessman himself was criminally prosecuted for abuse of power or official authority. Muravyev was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2017 in the Motovelo case. But in 2023, he was released and went abroad.
Since then, the company has been run by appointed state functionaries. For many years, first "Motovelo", and after its bankruptcy, "Motovelozavod" was headed by the former mayor of Minsk Nikolai Ladutko. However, the accumulated problems of the plant have not been solved so far.