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A US judge on Monday ruled that a former chief of Russian state oil and gas company Rosneft does not have a plausible claim to own a $300m superyacht that US authorities seized in 2022, in a win for the US Department of Justice.
US district judge Dale Ho’s decision boosts federal prosecutors’ bid for a forfeiture of the 348ft (106-meter) Amadea, which could be sold at auction.
Congress last year passed a law authorizing the transfer of seized Russian assets to Ukraine to bolster its military defenses. Eduard Khudainatov, who led Rosneft from 2010 to 2013, sought to block a forfeiture by claiming ownership of the yacht in late 2023.
But prosecutors in Manhattan called Khudainatov a “straw owner” for Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov, who is under US sanctions.
Washington’s diplomatic stance toward Moscow has shifted substantially since US authorities seized the Amadea in 2022. The seizure came as former Democratic president Joe Biden’s administration ramped up sanctions enforcement against people close to Russian president Vladimir Putin, to pressure Moscow to halt its war in Ukraine.
But after Donald Trump took office in January, the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, disbanded Task Force KleptoCapture, whose many actions targeting Russian oligarchs included high-profile cases such as the Amadea seizure.
Then on 28 February, Trump assailed Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, as lacking gratitude for US aid. Trump on 3 March paused military aid to Kyiv altogether.
Zelenskyy had enjoyed warm relations with Biden, and has said he could salvage his relationship with Trump.
Kerimov and his family are worth $10.9bn, according to Forbes magazine, after he amassed a fortune through Russian gold miner Polyus.
He was sanctioned by the US treasury department in 2014 and 2018 over Russian activities in Syria and Ukraine.
Prosecutors said he violated those sanctions by making more than $1m of maintenance payments on the yacht.
Khudainatov is not subject to US sanctions. His lawyer, Adam Ford, has said prosecutors had no witnesses to establish that Kerimov owned the Amadea.
“There’s simply nothing to connect Suleiman Kerimov to the vessel,” Ford said at a 21 January court hearing.
Prosecutor Rachael Doud said at the hearing that Kerimov’s niece paid a company controlled by Khudainatov €225m in 2021. Thereafter, Kerimov’s family had sole use of the Amadea, using it for Mediterranean and Caribbean trips, and had been planning major renovations, Doud said. The Amadea is docked in San Diego, and the US government is paying around $600,000 a month to maintain it, prosecutors have said.
