Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska filed a lawsuit in Washington against the US Treasury Department, reports the Financial Times. Deripaska demands the lifting of the sanctions imposed against him in 2018. Deripaska’s representative confirmed to Vedomosti that the businessman filed a complaint against the US Treasury and OFAC (the department of the ministry responsible for imposing sanctions). According to him, Deripaska is asking the court to prevent OFAC from using “the destructive power of economic sanctions without respecting the limits of legal authority and in a manner inconsistent with the US Constitution.”

Deripaska denies all claims of American departments. We are talking about simple justice, the businessman’s representative relayed Deripaska’s words.

“The presumption of innocence is one of the basic principles of the American legal system and is clearly ignored in the application of sanctions against me. US authorities should monitor law and order, not individuals. Only the courts can decide whether a person is guilty or not, and I believe that the US courts are objective enough to uphold American law and the Constitution,” Deripaska’s representative quotes him as saying.

“I have spent 30 years of my life building companies that are major players in the global economy, and I will not allow that hard work - along with millions of jobs and livelihoods - to be ruined by political intrigue,” the spokesman said.

US sanctions against Deripaska

In January 2018, the US Treasury published the so-called Remlev report - a list of officials and oligarchs whom Washington considers close to the Russian leadership. Among the oligarchs on the list were all those featured in the Russian ranking of billionaires according to Forbes magazine, including Oleg Deripaska. his fortune in 2018 The publication estimated at $6.7 billion - this is 19th place in the list of the richest Russian businessmen. In almost a year of being under sanctions , the billionaire’s fortune, according to Forbes, has decreased significantly - to $3.6 billion.

The US Treasury noted that the “Kremlin report” is not a list of sanctions and inclusion in it “should in no way be interpreted as the imposition of sanctions.” But in April, he nevertheless imposed sanctions against several persons involved in the report, including Deripaska: they were included in the list of Specially Designated Nationals ( SDN). Those on this list are prohibited from entering the United States, their assets in the United States are blocked, and US persons are prohibited from having any dealings with them. At the same time as Deripaska, eight of his assets were subject to these sanctions . In January 2019, restrictions against three companies – En+, UC Rusal and Eurosibenergo – were lifted thanks to an agreement reached with the US Treasury . But the rest of the companies and Deripaska himself remained under sanctions.

As FT notes, Deripaska’s lawsuit asks the court to oblige the US Treasury to exclude him from both lists.

Deripaska appealed US sanctions in an American court