With this, the oligarch presumably anticipated the West’s impending sanctions targeting him and other billionaires with ties to Putin. Which he probably tried to avoid in this way, the newspaper writes.
On February 24, the ship, The Aquamarine, was registered in the name of Russian businessman David Davidovich. The two are business partners. The ship is now located at the Damen Shipyard in Vlissingen. It is there for ‘structural adjustments’ to the ship, an anonymous source told the British newspaper.
In a written statement, Davidovich admits that he owns the vessel and the company MHC Jersey. This company is registered with the marine database MarineTraffic as the owner of the boat. A spokesman for Abramovich says he is not the “ultimate owner” of MHC Jersey Ltd.
Confiscated
On Wednesday, Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra announced that fourteen yachts linked to sanctioned Russians may not be delivered for the time being. Twelve of these are still under construction. “There is no indication that The Aquamarine is part of this,” the newspaper writes. The ship was brought to Flushing on November 16, 2021, but a source tells The Guardian that no work has been done on the ship since March 10, when British sanctions were introduced against (among others) Abramovich.
Furthermore, Davidovich admits that he is the majority shareholder of Norma Investments, the sole shareholder of MHC Jersey Ltd. The Wall Street Journal previously revealed that the property of Norma Investments, previously owned by Abramovich, became the property of Davidovich on the day the war started. Experts point out that this appears to be an attempt to circumvent the potential freeze on Abramovich’s properties.
bypass
Ownership of another consulting firm, MHC (Services), also passed into the hands of Davidovich on Feb. 24. So he quickly tried to – legally – get rid of his goods, it seems.
He also tries to evade sanctions in other ways, such as with two other ships, by sailing them to Turkey. These are the 140-meter-long Solaris and the 164-meter-long Eclipes. The Guardian writes that five ships have recently been attributed to him, including two ships worth more than a billion dollars (0.92 billion euros).
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A spokesperson for the shipyard in Vlissingen does not want to respond to the message from The Guardian, because they “never comment on the ownership and clients of yachts,” writes the Provinciale Zeeuwse Courant.