MOSCOW, January 9 (RAPSI) – Ukraine has granted a request filed by Russia to freeze late oligarch Boris Berezovsky’s assets in the country, Rossiskaya Gazeta reported Thursday.
Property and shares in a number of companies owned by Berezovsky are subject to request, the newspaper quoted Russian Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika as having said. According to the report, a court in Serbia is considering a request to freeze shares in eight companies linked to Berezovsky.
Berezovsky was found dead by his bodyguard in the bathroom of his house on Mill Lane, Ascot, Berkshire, in March 2012. The results of a post-mortem examination found the cause of death to be consistent with hanging. After having lost a case in London against fellow Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich that year, Berezovsky agreed to pay litigation costs of 35 million pounds and wrap up a series of other proceedings in London courts. He was allegedly on a bankruptcy edge before being found dead.
Grant Thornton was court-appointed to deal with the estate until an executor was appointed.
Berezovsky is on the Russian bailiffs’ list with unsettled debts estimated at 3.2 billion rubles (approximately $96.7 million). Since 2008, his creditors were paid out at about 300 million rubles (over $9 million).
The government of Russia’s Samara Region revealed earlier its plans to collect nearly 1 billion rubles (over $30 million) from Berezovsky’s heirs after Russian prosecutors found that in 1995 Berezovsky and his then-business partner Yuly Dubov conducted a series of thefts that proved damaging to the region. The regional government joined the case as an aggrieved party.