Yesterday it became known that the criminal case against the founder of the PIK group, owner of the National Non-metallic Company (NNK) Yuri Zhukov was terminated. He was suspected of coercion into a transaction using violence (clause “b”, part 2 of article 179 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Interfax reported yesterday, citing its source, that “the criminal case was terminated, the investigation did not find evidence of Yuri Zhukov’s guilt.” Those close to Mr. Zhukov confirmed to Kommersant that the case against the businessman was closed on May 8. “I can assure you that the investigation had no impact on the activities of the Pavlovsky Mining and Processing Plant. But whether it can be resumed again is a rhetorical question,” noted Kommersant’s interlocutor.

Let us recall that the victim in the case of the owner of NOC (controls the Pavlovsk Mining and Processing Plant in the Voronezh Region) was recognized as a deputy of the Voronezh Regional Duma, Sergei Poimanov, the ex-owner of Pavlovskgranit OJSC, which was Europe’s largest producer of crushed granite stone. Mr. Poimanov lost control of the enterprise in 2010, after he failed to pay off a Sberbank loan of 5.1 billion rubles, received for the purchase of a 47% stake in Pavlovskgranit from his partner Sergei Mamedov. After a chain of bankruptcies and corporate conflicts, which several times turned criminal, Pavlovsk GOK, the company’s main asset, came under the control of legal entities close to Yuri Zhukov (“Pavlovsk-nerud” and “Pavlovsk-promvzryv”). The plant's activities are carried out through the parent company NNK.

The investigation into the so-called “Pavlovskgranit” case began in the summer of 2014 and was already stopped at the request of the prosecutor’s office. However, in November last year the case was resumed, after which Mr. Zhukov was summoned for questioning, and due to his failure to appear, the businessman was put on the wanted list and detained at Vnukovo airport. Yuri Zhukov's defense insisted that there was no summons for questioning. The Babushkinsky Court of the capital sent the businessman under house arrest, which he served in his mansion in an elite village on Nikolina Gora. According to the investigation, from August 2012 to January 2013, unidentified persons under the leadership of Mr. Zhukov, with the threat of violence and exerting “psychological pressure,” forced the victim Poymanov to transfer to them his remaining 9% of the company’s shares. Investigators believed that the same people demanded that the country mansion where Sergei Poymanov’s family lives and a boat be sold to them at the same time for next to nothing. According to investigators, the stake that eventually came under the control of Yuri Zhukov’s structures is estimated at 850 million rubles.

Andrey Tsvetkov, Maria Kotova

The criminal case regarding forced sale of shares in Pavlovskgranit was discontinued