The St. Petersburg company Karst, owned by the German Adler Global, turned out to be one of the subcontractors for the construction of the Kerch Bridge. The previous owner of Karst was convicted of fraud during the construction of the Zenit Arena

Construction site of the transport crossing across the Kerch Strait on Tuzla Island (Photo: Mikhail Metzel/TASS)

Stroygazmontazh (SGM) of billionaire Arkady Rotenberg last week published a list of subcontractors for the construction of the Kerch Bridge. Among them is Karst LLC, registered in St. Petersburg. According to the Karst representative, the company will make pile foundations for the bridge and supports, but he and the SGM representative did not specify the scope and amount of the contract.

According to SPARK, Karst is 100% owned by the German company Adler Global, registered in the city of Kaltenholzhausen in Germany. Adler Global also owns 100% of the St. Petersburg construction holding "Old Town - Karst". “Karst” and “Old Town - Karst” have the same registration addresses and telephone numbers, as follows from SPARK. But the representative of “Karst” claims that “Old Town - Karst” has nothing to do with the contract for the construction of the Kerch Bridge.

Conditional sentence for theft of 145 million rubles.

The German Adler Global became the owner of 100% of Karst and Old Town - Karst in August 2014. Before Adler Global, the owner and general director of Karst and Old Town - Karst was Dmitry Korshunov. In August 2014, he was sentenced to four years of suspended imprisonment for the theft of 145 million rubles. during the construction of the Zenit Arena. Korshunov entered into a pre-trial agreement with the investigation and paid 5 million rubles. A representative of Karst says that the company now has a new general director - Alexey Berendeev.

An extract from the German business register indicates that Adler Global's assets amounted to €5.8 million in 2014. The company's website states that it has a warehouse area of 400 square meters. m in Frankfurt am Main and several buildings.

A Karst representative declined to comment on who is behind Adler Global. A representative from Adler Global did not respond to calls or a written request from RBC.

If the German authorities become aware that a German company is involved in the construction of the Kerch Bridge, then sanctions may be applied against it, warns Paragon Advice Group partner Alexander Zakharov. “Most likely, the authorities will first gently recommend that the company refrain from participating in the project, but if it does not listen, then freezing of accounts, limiting the possibility of funding, prohibiting the use of funds in the account and other measures of influence are possible,” Zakharov lists.

Formally, the European Union has banned European companies from operating only in Crimea, that is, if they work from Taman, there may be no violation, says international lawyer Vsevolod Miller. According to him, the EU considers the Ukrainian territory to be 8 miles from the coast of Crimea; sanctions do not apply further.

According to Zakharov, it does not matter where the company physically operates - from the Krasnodar Territory or the Crimean Peninsula, the risk of sanctions is still high. “We must take into account that the purpose of construction is to connect the territories of Russia and Crimea, which the world community does not recognize as Russian,” says the lawyer.

A representative of Karst refused to comment to RBC on the risks of shareholders associated with the ban on European companies operating in Crimea.

Who else is building a bridge to Crimea?

Stroygazmontazh was selected without competition as the general contractor for the construction of the Kerch Bridge in January 2015. The total cost of the project is 228.3 billion rubles. The largest subcontract - for 96.9 billion rubles. — Mostotrest received from SGM. Also among the subcontractors are Mostootryad No. 75, KrasnodarGazStroy (part of SGM), Mostdorstroy, KBK-Group, Novosibirsk Firm DEKO and GidroPromStroy.

A German company is interested in the construction of the Kerch Bridge