{"id":604335,"date":"2025-12-01T00:55:27","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T00:55:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/604335\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T00:55:27","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T00:55:27","slug":"billionaire-oligarch-suing-britain-over-sanctions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/604335\/","title":{"rendered":"Billionaire oligarch suing Britain over sanctions"},"content":{"rendered":"

A sanctioned Russian-Israeli oligarch who founded Alfa-Bank and whose net worth is $15 billion is suing Britain, the government has \u00adconfirmed.<\/p>\n

Mikhail Fridman is taking legal action under investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) rules, which allow foreign investors to sue a country over an action that affects their \u00adforeign interests, Chris Bryant, trade policy minister, told the House of Commons two weeks ago.<\/p>\n

Details of the case brought by Fridman, 61, have not been disclosed. He was sanctioned by Britain following Russia\u2019s full invasion of Ukraine in 2022 because of his investments in Alfa, Russia\u2019s largest non-state bank.<\/p>\n

Initial claims by UK Treasury officials that Fridman was close to President Putin were dropped but the sanctions are still in place.<\/p>\n

ISDS suits often take the form of international arbitration. They allow investors to bypass a state\u2019s domestic courts to seek compensation. <\/p>\n

\u2022 Mikhail Fridman: judge curbs sanctioned billionaire\u2019s mansion spending<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

The mechanism has been criticised by transparency campaigners, who have described it as a threat to democracy and state sovereignty.<\/p>\n

Fridman is also involved in a separate ISDS suit against Luxembourg over the freezing of his assets. Last year, he filed a $16 billion claim against the country, claiming that sanctions applied following the invasion had been \u00adimposed without due process.<\/p>\n

Fridman was removed from the EU sanctions list last year after he successfully sued the bloc over his inclusion, which was initially brought on grounds that he was \u201ca top Russian financier and \u00adenabler of Putin\u2019s inner circle\u201d.<\/p>\n

At the time he told the business outlet RBK that he was \u201csatisfied\u201d with the ruling.<\/p>\n

Cleodie Rickard, trade campaign manager at Global Justice Now, said the UK must follow other countries in removing ISDS from trade deals. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat allies of Putin can hold our government\u2019s actions to ransom during Russia\u2019s illegal war on Ukraine is an outrage,\u201d she said. \u201cThis latest case against the UK government highlights the huge threat that corporate courts pose not only to sovereignty and democracy, but to security.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fridman was approached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A sanctioned Russian-Israeli oligarch who founded Alfa-Bank and whose net worth is $15 billion is suing Britain, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-604335","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-northern-ireland","14":"tag-scotland","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115641589801156393","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}