MOSCOW, January 13 (RAPSI) – A group of companies under control of Russian businessman Denis Katsyv hired law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP as they are fighting attempts to seize assets acquired with allegedly misappropriated funds.

The companies within Prevezon group were ordered to retain new counsel by January 17, 2017, after John Moscow, a partner at BakerHostetler law firm, was disqualified last December.

Moscow is to be replaced by Quinn Emanuel’s partners Adam Abensohn, Faith Gay, and Kevin Reed, as well as Renita Sharma, a firm’s associate. Both Abensohn and Gay were, at various times, Assistant United States Attorneys in the Eastern District of New York, whereas Reed served as a federal prosecutor. All three lawyers have a broad range of expertise and are experienced in working with the US authorities, as the firm’s web site shows.

The case against Prevezon was initiated yet in September 2013, when the US authorities filed a complaint seeking to forfeit certain properties owned by 11 companies running elite real estate in New York. The complaint alleged that the proceeds from a $230 million tax fraud revealed by lawyer Sergey Magnitsky working for Firestone Duncan, which, among others, cooperated with Hermitage Capital Management, were laundered through various shell companies in Russia and abroad. Prosecutors claimed that some of that money was then transferred through Moldovan shell companies to Prevezon Holdings, which in turn used those, commingled with funds from other defendant companies, to purchase an array of New York real estate.

The entities affiliated with Cyprus-based Prevezon Holdings Limited are owned exclusively by Denis Katsyv, the son of former Moscow Region Transport Minister Petr Katsyv. The US authorities blacklisted seven companies 95 per cent of shares in which belong to Prevezon Alexander, controlled by Prevezon Holdings, and 5 per cent are owned by Katsyv’s Martash Holdings.

In December 2015 the US District Court for the Southern District of New York disqualified BakerHostetler and John Moscow from representing Prevezon in this case due to a conflict of interests as it became known that in 2008 and 2009 a partner at BakerHostetler worked on behalf of Hermitage Capital, when the investment fund encountered problems in Russia.

Last December the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the decision taking John Moscow and BakerHostetler off the Prevezon case.