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Irish Independent
04-07-2025
- Business
- Irish Independent
Sanctions hamper €4bn liquidation of Irish-based GTLK firms
The companies were sanctioned by the US Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). In 2023, the High Court ordered that GTLK Europe and GTLK Europe Capital be wound up. The companies were liquidated on foot of an application from their creditors, who were owed close to $180m (€153m). The largest unsecured creditor of GTLK Capital, and therefore the group, is its bondholders. The aggregate outstanding principal amount of bonds issued by the companies is $3.25bn. The two insolvent Irish firms controlled assets including about 70 jets and 19 sea-going vessels valued at about €4bn. It is the biggest ever liquidation in Ireland. The companies' activities were hit by sanctions imposed on Russian entities and individuals following the invasion of Ukraine. The firms are part of Russian joint stock company GTLK, which is wholly owned by the Russian government through its ministry of transport and ministry of finance. As of the end of May, the joint liquidators – Damien Murran and Julian Moroney, of Teneo's Dublin office – had secured just over €60m in realisations and 'second realisations' of €276.2m. There was €190.6m in cash on the books at the end of last month. While the joint liquidators said that 'substantial progress' was made following their appointment to secure necessary licences and permissions from various national regulators to perform the primary tasks of the liquidation, the narrowness of the licence from the OFAC has slowed their work. 'The limitations of the licence have resulted in considerably more time being devoted to standard process tasks,' they said in a liquidation report filed this week. 'Simple matters, such as the collection of cash receipts, have become arduous tasks taking more time than reasonably expected. 'The limitations have also gone further, impacting strategic delivery. For example, in isolated instances interested parties have withdrawn from sales processes.' The liquidators said that in order to address these issues, they have filed about 17 further applications with the OFAC for additional licences. 'However, these are taking time to obtain responses,' they note. 'A delisting application to remove GTLK Europe, GTLK Capital and GTLKE Middle East FZCO from the US sanctioned entities list was filed on behalf of the joint liquidators with the US State Department in May 2024,' the latest report adds. 'The ongoing practical challenges in the liquidation as a result of sanctions experienced over the last number of months highlight the significant value that a successful OFAC delisting would garner for the estate in mitigating certain regulatory delays. 'However, similar to the OFAC licence applications, it is taking time to obtain responses on this delisting application.' The liquidators said they are making 'significant progress' in the liquidation of GTLK Europe and the realisation of interests in its subsidiaries, 'which will ultimately translate into recoveries for the benefit of the company creditors'.
Euronews
01-07-2025
- Politics
- Euronews
Azerbaijan jails Sputnik execs amid escalating tensions with Russia
The executive director and editor-in-chief of Russia's state-run news agency Sputnik in Azerbaijan have been sentenced to four months in prison on Tuesday, following a Baku police raid of the Russian state media affiliate the day before, in what appears to be a fast-moving escalation between the two countries. According to Azerbaijan's authorities, they have been found guilty of fraud, illegal entrepreneurship and legalisation of property obtained by criminal means, Baku-based international news channel AnewZ reported. Azeri APA agency reported earlier that two employees of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) were among seven people detained after the raid on the offices of Sputnik Azerbaijan, owned by Rossiya Segodnya, which is in turn owned and operated by the Russian government. Another Russian state-run media outlet, Ruptly, later reported that one of its editors had been detained after attempting to film the police action at the Sputnik offices in Baku. Azerbaijan's Interior Ministry published a video showing officers leading two men to police vans in handcuffs. The tensions between Azerbaijan and Russia escalated over the past few days following the detention of over 50 Azerbaijanis in Yekaterinburg in raids by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) last Friday. Two people — brothers Huseyn and Ziyaddin Safarov — died during the raids, and three others were seriously injured. Russia claimed that the arrests were part of a murder investigation from the early 2000s. Azerbaijan-based broadcaster AnewZ said the news of deadly raids sparked outrage and calls for justice amid what Azerbaijanis allege as abuse and ethnic profiling. Some detainees have alleged that confessions were obtained through force, threats, and coercion, including pressure on family members. Forensic experts have revealed that the Azerbaijani citizens killed during the Russian raids in Yekaterinburg died from blunt force trauma, not gunshot wounds, raising additional questions about the circumstances of the deaths. Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry condemned the operation as 'brutal and unjustified' and called on the Russian authorities to 'conduct an urgent investigation into the matter and bring the perpetrators of this unacceptable violence to justice as soon as possible,' according to AnewZ. In addition, Azerbaijan summoned Russia's envoy to Baku to protest against the deadly raids and also cancelled all cultural events planned by the Russian state and private institutions in protest against the raid on Russia's state-run Sputnik agency offices. "In response to targeted and extrajudicial killings and acts of violence against Azerbaijanis based on their ethnicity, dem onstratively perpetrated by Russian law enforcement agencies in the Yekaterinburg region of the Russian Federation – and considering the systematic nature of such incidents in recent times – all cultural events planned in Azerbaijan involving Russian state and private entities have been cancelled," Azerbaijan's ministry of Culture said in a statement. Russia's state-run agency in Azerbaijan In February, the Azerbaijani government shut down Russia's state-funded news agency, Sputnik, but it has continued to operate, albeit with reduced staff. Although the agency's accreditation was officially revoked in February, the Azerbaijan Interior Ministry stated that its data indicated Sputnik Azerbaijan allegedly continued its activities using illegal funding sources. The director of Sputnik's parent company Rossiya Segodnya, Dmitry Kiselev — one of the most prominent Russian propagandists, who regularly makes open calls to destroy Ukraine and attack Europe with Russian missiles — said Sputnik and Azerbaijani officials had been trying to find a temporary agreement allowing it to keep working in Baku. Sputnik, Ruptly, and other affiliates of Rossiya Segodnya are widely regarded as tools for spreading the Kremlin's propaganda outside of Russia. Kiselev expressed his disconnect over the Monday arrests on Telegram, calling it a 'deliberate step aimed at worsening relations between the countries'. Azerbaijan's parliament has pulled out of planned bilateral talks in Moscow amid the recent escalation and cancelled a visit by a Russian deputy prime minister. Russian authorities denounced the state-run Sputnik office raid and detention as "unfriendly acts by Baku and the illegal arrest of Russian journalists." In additional developments on Tuesday, Azerbaijan's Interior Ministry announced that it dismantled two criminal groups in Baku, detaining Russian nationals suspected of trafficking drugs from Iran and conducting cyber fraud operations. Relations between Moscow and Baku cooled after an Azerbaijani airliner crashed in Kazakhstan in December, killing 38 of 67 people aboard. As exclusively reported by Euronews, investigations into the incident revealed that the Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 was shot at by Russian air defence over Russia's Grozny and rendered uncontrollable by electronic warfare. Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev accused Russia of trying to "hush up" the incident for several days. Russian President Vladimir Putin apologised to Aliyev for what he called a "tragic incident" but stopped short of acknowledging responsibility. In May, Aliyev decided not to attend Russia's 80th Victory Day celebrations.
LeMonde
22-05-2025
- Politics
- LeMonde
How Russian public fund Pravfond continued to subsidize its allies in Europe despite sanctions
In October 2024, border guards stopped a 65-year-old travel agent trying to carry €10,000 in cash into Estonia from Russia. Tatjana Sokolova was supposed to deliver the money to Andrei Andronov, a Russian national on trial in Estonia. Accused there of collaborating with Russian intelligence, he needed to pay his legal fees. It remains unclear why this travel agency head was helping Andronov, but authorities quickly discovered that the money was not hers. She had gone to collect the cash on the other side of the border after receiving the funds in a Russian bank account, sent from Pravfond, the Fund for Support and Protection of the Rights of Russian Compatriots Living Abroad – an organization created and funded by the Russian government. In April 2025, Sokolova, who did not respond to our requests for comment, was convicted in Estonia of violating sanctions against Moscow. Pravfond's stated aim is to defend the interests of Russians living abroad, mostly by providing legal aid. But, the foundation has also financed pro-Russian propaganda in various European countries, especially the former Soviet states in the Baltics, and helped advance the Kremlin's foreign policy interests. The "Dear Compatriots" Project, conducted in partnership with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and involving some 20 media outlets, also revealed that Pravfond paid the legal fees of alleged spies. Sanctioned since 2023 The European Union sanctioned Pravfond and its executive director, Aleksandr Oudaltsev, in June 2023, making it theoretically much harder to move money into Europe. But tens of thousands of internal Pravfond emails obtained by Danish public broadcaster DR – shared with the OCCRP consortium and 28 partner media outlets, including Le Monde – show how the foundation has been able to continue its work across Europe with relative ease.
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump-appointed prosecutor's appearances on Russia-backed outlets draw scrutiny
Given Ed Martin's recent record as the interim U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., it was difficult to imagine how he could become even more controversial. But a new Washington Post report makes matters worse for the hyper-partisan Trump loyalist and former 'Stop the Steal' organizer. Martin is now interim U.S. attorney for D.C. and Trump's pick to serve full time in the role. But as a conservative activist and former Missouri Republican official, he appeared more than 150 times on [the Russian state television network RT] and Sputnik — networks funded and directed by the Russian government — as a guest commentator from August 2016 to April 2024, according to a search of their websites and the Internet Archive's database of television broadcasts. What makes a story like this so striking is that it's really made up of three overlapping problems. The first is that Martin agreed to appear more than 150 times on Russian propaganda outlets. The second is what Martin said during those on-air appearances: The Republican lawyer apparently had a knack for offering commentary that aligned with Kremlin talking points, including telling one host that there was 'no evidence' of a Russian military buildup on Ukraine's borders the week before the Russian military crossed those borders and began a war in Ukraine. But every bit as important, if not more so, is the third problem: As part of his presidential nomination to serve as the U.S. attorney in one of the nation's most important prosecutorial offices, Martin was required to disclose these media appearances to the Senate Judiciary Committee — and according to the Post's report, at least initially, he did not. (The article has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News.) 'Martin's office did not initially respond last week to questions about his appearances on RT and Sputnik, including why he did not disclose them to the Senate or whether he was compensated for them,' the Post added. The report went on to note that his spokesperson said Martin sent senators 'a supplemental letter' disclosing the appearances he failed to mention earlier. On Monday, a group of former Jan. 6 prosecutors and conservative attorneys asked a disciplinary board to investigate Martin, arguing that Trump's right-wing nominee — who has no prosecutorial experience — has a 'fundamental misunderstanding of the role of a federal prosecutor.' The letter, addressed to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel at the U.S. District Court of Appeals, said Martin's actions 'threaten to undermine the integrity of the U.S. Attorney's Office and the legal profession in the District of Columbia.' Two days later, Martin's nomination suddenly looks even worse. For those unfamiliar with the Missouri Republican, Martin's 'greatest hits' package features misguided and unnecessary fights with the dean of Georgetown University's law school, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, former President Joe Biden and Democratic Reps. Robert Garcia of California and Eugene Vindman of Virginia. During his brief tenure, Martin has also: demoted multiple senior officials involved in Jan. 6 insurrection cases; compared one of the criminal charges used against Jan. 6 defendants to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II; falsely described himself as one of the president's lawyers; weighed in on a civil case involving the White House, which had literally nothing to do with his office; intervened in a dubious Environmental Protection Agency investigation; made a dubious decision in a case involving Republican Rep. Cory Mills of Florida; launched the wildly unnecessary 'Operation Whirlwind'; also launched the wildly unnecessary 'Project 1512' initiative; also launched a wildly unnecessary 'election accountability' unit; made a creepy public vow to wield his prosecutorial powers against those who get in Elon Musk's way; engaged in brazen conflict of interest in a Jan. 6 case, in which he effectively took both sides of a criminal case; and kicked off a radically unnecessary investigation into Jack Smith and a law firm that gave the former special counsel pro bono legal services. In a piece for New York magazine, Elie Honig recently described the lawyer as Trump's 'dangerous and ridiculous prosecutor.' Martin seems to be going out of his way to prove his many critics right. What's more, The New York Times reported that Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have asked the D.C. Bar's disciplinary counsel to investigate Martin, arguing that the Trump-appointed Republican has 'abused' his prosecutorial powers. The Senate has not yet scheduled a confirmation hearing for Martin, and the calendar is of increasing relevance: If he isn't confirmed by May 20, his interim appointment will expire and he'll have to be replaced at the U.S attorney's office. Watch this space. This post updates our related earlier coverage. This article was originally published on
Saba Yemen
27-02-2025
- Business
- Saba Yemen
Moscow discusses with Baghdad possibility of one of its oil companies participating in Iraq
Moscow - Saba: Russian Energy Minister Sergei Tsevilev announced Thursday that his country discussed with Iraq the possibility of the Russian company "Zarubezhneft" participating in oil projects in Iraq. The Russian minister said in statements to reporters: "We have suggested that the company "Zarubezhneft" also enter the Iraqi market." Tsevilev explained that this company owned by the Russian government was created specifically to work abroad, noting that it has great and rich experience in this field. The Russian minister indicated that the Iraqi side had in turn suggested involving the entire Russian business community in tenders related to oil projects. Whatsapp Telegram Email Print more of (International)
