MOSCOW, April 27 - RAPSI. Russia's richest woman Yelena Baturina, the wife of former Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov, has withdrawn her lawsuit to cancel her purchase of the Olymp-2014 company. The court has terminated proceedings in the case.
Baturina claimed that she was convinced the company had assets in the Sochi region, where the 2014 Winter Olympics are scheduled to be held. She eventually acquired a 90-percent stake in Olymp-2014 for over 824 million rubles ($28 million).
However, Baturina later learned that Olymp-2014 had no legal right to construct facilities or for plots of land. She said she was deliberately misled and coaxed into the deal.
Baturina demanded to cancel the deal and recover the $28 million she paid for the company and $6,300 in moral damages.
A co-defendant in the case was Yuri Khardikov, a former Moscow's prefect, who acted as Olymp-2014's representative in the deal. Khardikov's defense attorney earlier said the claim was unfounded.
During the September 14 preliminary hearing, the Moscow Commercial Court ruled that the case should be transferred to the jurisdiction of the Krasnodar Territory Commercial Court, thereby granting the plaintiff's appeal, as Olymp-2014 is registered in Sochi.
Khardikov was dismissed from his Moscow prefect office in late 2008. He was later prosecuted at Baturina's request. Investigators discovered that he had sold a plot of land in Sochi to Baturina in 2007, even though he knew the land had been seized by the court order. Baturina allegedly sustained one billion rubles ($34 million) in damages as a result of the deal. Meanwhile, Khardikov said the land was reclaimed after Baturina had purchased it.
Khardikov was arrested in absentia and placed on the international wanted list. In March 2011 Lithuania granted him political asylum.