Wealthy Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and his associate, Rick Gates, alleging that they defrauded Deripaska's company.
The lawsuit relied, in part, on details included in special counsel Robert Mueller's indictment against the two men.
Manafort came under renewed scrutiny last year after The Atlantic published emails that appeared to show him using his elevated role in the Trump campaign to resolve the dispute with Deripaska.
Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska filed a lawsuit Wednesday against President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, alleging that Manafort and his associate, Rick Gates, "vanished" $18.9 million that Deripaska's company gave to them to invest in a failed Ukrainian TV venture, called the "Black Sea Cable," in 2008.
The complaint was filed in a New York state court and is not the first time Deripaska has sued Manafort. His representatives also made similar claims in legal complaints filed in the Cayman Islands in 2014 and Virginia in 2015.
Per the lawsuit, Deripaska's company, Surf Horizon Ltd., gave Manafort and Gates nearly $19 million to purchase Black Sea Cable. As the economy dipped into a recession in the late 2000s, Surf recommended that Manafort and Gates sell Black Sea Cable, which they agreed to.
However, the complaint said, Manafort and Gates "took no steps to find a buyer for Black Sea Cable." After Surf repeatedly asked about the status of the investment, Gates said in an email that "efforts to sell Black Sea Cable were still underway."
Later, Deripaska learned that Surf did not own Black Sea Cable through the joint venture with Manafort and Gates, and "Surf had no knowledge that Black Sea Cable had been sold or transferred to another party."
The lawsuit relied, in part, on allegations that were outlined in special counsel Robert Mueller's office's indictment against Manafort and Gates, which was unsealed in late October.
Manafort and Gates pleaded not guilty to 12 counts including money laundering, tax fraud, failure to register as foreign agents, and conspiracy against the US.
The indictment, Deripaska's lawsuit said, "provides detail regarding movement of funds from bank accounts in Cyprus to accounts in the United States controlled by Manafort and Gates."
"The dealings of Manafort and Gates with Surf mirror the pattern of corporate dealings alleged in the indictment," it continued.
Deripaska's company is seeking over $25 million in damages.
Last October, The Atlantic published several emails that appeared to show Manafort using his elevated role in the Trump campaign to resolve the dispute with Deripaska.
Manafort reportedly wrote an email to his associate, Russian-Ukrainian operative Konstantin Kilimnik, offering to give Deripaska "private briefings" about the campaign.
"I assume you have shown our friends my media coverage, right?" Manafort reportedly wrote to Kilimnik, who has suspected ties to Russian intelligence.
"Absolutely," replied Kilimnik. "Every article."
"How do we use to get whole," Manafort responded. "Has OVD operation seen?"
Former intelligence officials told Business Insider last year that Manafort was likely trying to repay his debt to Deripaska. Investigators have concluded that "OVD" was a reference to his full name: Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska.
Kilimnik reportedly told Manafort in a later email that he had been "sending everything to Victor, who has been forwarding the coverage directly to OVD." Victor was a senior aide to Deripaska, according to The Atlantic.
Deripaska and Manafort worked together in 2006 as well, when Deripaska signed a $10 million annual contract with Manafort for a lobbying project in the US that Manafort said would "greatly benefit the [Vladimir] Putin Government."
The safest place for Manafort right now would be a federal prison.
A Russian oligarch and Putin ally is suing Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort for misappropriating almost $19 million invested in Ukrainian telecoms companies.
A company connected to Oleg Deripaska is taking Mr Manafor to court after their long-running business relationship surfaced amid the Russia collusion investigation.
Russian Billionaire Tied To Paul Manafort Is $1.6 Billion Richer Since Trump's Election
Noah Kirsch , FORBES STAFF Lists #TrumpsAmerica MAR 31, 2017 @ 09:05 AM I principally cover billionaires and entrepreneurs.
Oleg Deripaska, an international aluminum tycoon, is one of five dozen Russian billionaires whose net worth has risen since Donald Trump’s election. The 49-year-old Muscovite has benefited tremendously from a global rebound in aluminum prices and a surge in the ruble’s value; his fortune has jumped $1.6 billion since November 8.
Deripaska, now worth an estimated $5.3 billion, made headlines last week after the Associated Press reported that he paid former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort millions of dollars as a consultant beginning in 2006 with the intention of influencing global politics on behalf of the Russian state. Both Manafort and Deripaska have denied that allegation.
A former metals trader, Deripaska holds the bulk of his fortune in shares of United Company Rusal, which bills itself as the world’s largest aluminum producer. Rusal’s stock has climbed 41% higher since the general election, including a more-than 4% gain on Thursday.
Sergey Donskoy, a senior metals and mining analyst at Societe Generale, attributes much of the increase to a strong international aluminum market caused, in part, by predicted Chinese domestic production caps. He expects global aluminum prices to further rally this year.
Rusal’s stock has undoubtedly also benefited, at least in the short term, from President Trump’s ascendance. Its stock rose 16% the day after his victory alone.
Deripaska is not the only high-net-worth Russian with solid post-election returns. To date, ; in the last year, the group’s combined net worth has risen $104 billion.
Deripaska’s career has been marked by extreme volatility. After taking control of Russian Aluminum in 2000, he rose to become the world’s 9th richest person by 2008, with a $28 billion fortune. But he nearly lost everything when the global financial crisis hit and his companies struggled with heavy debt loads.
Following the collapse, Deripaska, who married into the family of former president Boris Yeltsin, negotiated with the Russian government to restructure his loan obligations. His personal worth has since partially recovered, and he now holds a diverse portfolio with investments in automotive, metals and financial services businesses.
In last week's Associated Press report, Deripaska, an ally of President Vladimir Putin, was accused of hiring Paul Manafort to a $10 million annual contract starting in 2006. Manafort allegedly created a “plan to ‘greatly benefit the Putin government’” by influencing "politics, business dealings” and media in the US and Europe.
In an ad placed in The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, Deripaska called those claims "false allegations" and said that he had been made the "subject of a massive and misleading campaign."
In a statement provided to FORBES, a representative for Manafort confirmed that the former Trump adviser worked for Deripaska as a consultant for Rusal, but firmly denied that Manafort was ever employed by, or on behalf of, the Russian government. The spokesperson classified many of this week’s reports as “smear and innuendo being used to paint a false picture.”
He did not respond to questions about whether Manafort has ever been employed by Russian billionaires other than Deripaska.
Follow Noah on Twitter @Noah_Kirsch.
Oleg Deripaska, an international aluminum tycoon, is one of five dozen Russian billionaires whose net worth has risen since Donald Trump’s election. The 49-year-old Muscovite has benefited tremendously from a global rebound in aluminum prices and a surge in the ruble’s value; his fortune has jumped $1.6 billion since November 8.
Deripaska, now worth an estimated $5.3 billion, made headlines last week after the Associated Press reported that he paid former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort millions of dollars as a consultant beginning in 2006 with the intention of influencing global politics on behalf of the Russian state. Both Manafort and Deripaska have denied that allegation.
A former metals trader, Deripaska holds the bulk of his fortune in shares of United Company Rusal, which bills itself as the world’s largest aluminum producer. Rusal’s stock has climbed 41% higher since the general election, including a more-than 4% gain on Thursday.
Sergey Donskoy, a senior metals and mining analyst at Societe Generale, attributes much of the increase to a strong international aluminum market caused, in part, by predicted Chinese domestic production caps. He expects global aluminum prices to further rally this year.
Rusal’s stock has undoubtedly also benefited, at least in the short term, from President Trump’s ascendance. Its stock rose 16% the day after his victory alone.
Deripaska is not the only high-net-worth Russian with solid post-election returns. To date, ; in the last year, the group’s combined net worth has risen $104 billion.
Deripaska’s career has been marked by extreme volatility. After taking control of Russian Aluminum in 2000, he rose to become the world’s 9th richest person by 2008, with a $28 billion fortune. But he nearly lost everything when the global financial crisis hit and his companies struggled with heavy debt loads.
Following the collapse, Deripaska, who married into the family of former president Boris Yeltsin, negotiated with the Russian government to restructure his loan obligations. His personal worth has since partially recovered, and he now holds a diverse portfolio with investments in automotive, metals and financial services businesses.
In last week's Associated Press report, Deripaska, an ally of President Vladimir Putin, was accused of hiring Paul Manafort to a $10 million annual contract starting in 2006. Manafort allegedly created a “plan to ‘greatly benefit the Putin government’” by influencing "politics, business dealings” and media in the US and Europe.
In an ad placed in The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, Deripaska called those claims "false allegations" and said that he had been made the "subject of a massive and misleading campaign."
In a statement provided to FORBES, a representative for Manafort confirmed that the former Trump adviser worked for Deripaska as a consultant for Rusal, but firmly denied that Manafort was ever employed by, or on behalf of, the Russian government. The spokesperson classified many of this week’s reports as “smear and innuendo being used to paint a false picture.”
He did not respond to questions about whether Manafort has ever been employed by Russian billionaires other than Deripaska.
MOSCOW — An aluminum magnate who survived the gangster capitalism of the 1990s and the financial crisis of 2008, Oleg Deripaska is a shrewd self-made billionaire who has managed to stay on the right side of power, whether by marrying into "the family" of Russia's first president, Boris Yeltsin, or by making himself indispensable to its current one, Vladimir Putin.
As my Washington-based colleagues reported this week, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort allegedly offered to provide Deripaska, 49, with personal briefings about the 2016 presidential election less than two weeks before Trump accepted the Republican nomination. The emailed offer, said to have been sent to a Russian colleague of Manafort's, is among tens of thousands of documents that have been turned over to investigators looking into possible collusion between Trump associates and Russia as part of an effort by the Kremlin to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election.
[Manafort offered to give Russian billionaire ‘private briefings’ on 2016 campaign]
Russian aluminum billionaire Deripaska employed Paul Manafort, Donald Trump's former campaign head, to help further Russia's President Vladimir Putin's interests, according to an Associated Press report. Deripaska had been one of the key moguls awarded contracts in Sochi in the lead up to the 2014 Olympics. He also married into former President Boris Yeltsin's family. A former metals trader, he assumed control of Russian Aluminum in 2000 at age 31. He was the nation's richest person and 9th richest in world in 2008 before nearly losing it all due to crashing markets and heavy debts. He personally negotiated with the Russian government, banks and other creditors to restructure his loan obligations. Today, through his Basic Element, he owns stakes in UC Rusal, a leading aluminum producer; EuroSibEnergo, one of the largest hydroelectric power producers in the world; GAZ Group, a leading automotive company; Ingosstrakh, an insurance company, and AgroHolding Kuban, a large agricultural company in Russia.
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