The court nationalized the CarPrice platform of investor Galitsky

The Tverskoy Court of Moscow recognized the activities of Galitsky's Almaz Capital Partners as an extremist organization

The Tverskoy Court of Moscow, in the framework of the case of investor Alexander Galitsky and the Almaz Capital Partners corporation, whose activities are recognized as extremist and prohibited, seized the CarPrice platform, as well as shares and interests belonging to the owner of the Lanit group, Philippe Gens, and the co-owner of Aiteko, Shamil Shakirov, as state income.

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Assets and third parties

The court concluded that the organizations were used to finance Galitsky and the investment company Almaz Capital Partners. In addition, he recovered shares in seven more companies registered in the name of third parties.

“In relation to third parties, the court actually applied liability measures in the absence of demands stated against them and without involving them in the case,” Galitsky’s lawyer Kira Koruma told the publication.

According to her, Galitsky had no relation to a number of third-party companies and was not even familiar with some. There also remains uncertainty in the wording of the decision - it is not clear which assets of Gens and Shakirov were used for financing, and which organizations the court had in mind.

A representative of the Lanit group said that Gens is not an investor in Galitsky’s funds. “And we do not know what assets of the latter were turned into state revenue,” he said, adding that the company is not aware of any court decisions related to Gens, since it was not involved in the process.

Court decision and position of the prosecutor's office

The operative part of the decision was announced on March 23. On the same day, the Tverskoy District Court of Moscow upheld the claim of the Prosecutor General's Office and recognized the activities of Galitsky and the Almaz Capital Partners fund he founded as an extremist association.

The claim was preceded by a supervisory inspection. According to the prosecutor's office, Galitsky, who has Russian and Dutch citizenship, founded the fund in 2008. He invested in projects in the field of artificial intelligence, machine learning and blockchain, and until 2014 - in Russian startups, including Yandex, and had a representative office in Moscow.

After 2014, the fund joined the sanctions of the United States and the European Union, stopped investing in Russian companies and, according to the supervisory authority, began “illegal withdrawal of capital abroad.” Since 2022, the prosecutor’s office claims, the fund has been “virtually directly and actively involved” in the war in Ukraine and has directed about $50 million to Ukrainian companies associated with the military-industrial complex.

CarPrice connection and investment

In 2014–2015, Almaz Capital participated, together with other funds, in two rounds of investments in CarPrice. At the end of 2023, Galitsky was on the board of directors of Selanikar LLC, the main legal entity of the service. The fund's exit or change in its status has not been publicly announced.
Galitsky himself previously stated that the fund invests exclusively in civilian projects, and its charter directly prohibits investments in weapons production.

Previously, “Layout” talked about turning Domodedovo Airport into state revenue.

Photo: Alexander Galitsky, August 3, 2015. 4ibon4ik/CC BY-SA 4.0 Wikimedia Commons

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