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Alisher Usmanov has filed a lawsuit against UBS, accusing the bank of triggering a German investigation into the Uzbek-Russian billionaire by submitting “baseless reports” about his transactions.
The tycoon’s lawyers said on Monday that the Swiss bank submitted “absurd and unsubstantiated, if not knowingly false” reports to Germany’s financial intelligence unit, the agency responsible for fighting money laundering, between 2018 and 2022.
“UBS breached the confidentiality of client data, spread misleading allegations about the client and grossly violated the general right to privacy,” they wrote in a statement, adding that the billionaire filed a lawsuit against the bank in Frankfurt on June 7.
Under German law, banks are required to file suspicious activity reports if they see potential red flags that may point to money laundering. Lenders typically do not receive feedback on the quality of such reports, and several have been fined for submitting them late.
Usmanov was among dozens of Russian businessmen hit by Western sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine, with the EU identifying him as having “particularly close ties” to President Vladimir Putin, which the billionaire denies.
The district court in Frankfurt confirmed to the Financial Times that a lawsuit had been filed against UBS, but said it had not yet received the court payment required under German law.
Usmanov is suing UBS for damages, although the figure for the amount sought has not yet been disclosed, his lawyer told the FT.
UBS declined to comment.
Usmanov scored a legal victory last year when a court in Frankfurt ruled that searches of his property in Germany were illegal. The searches were carried out by German law enforcement authorities as part of a money laundering investigation into the billionaire.
The tycoon has previously categorically denied any allegations of money laundering or tax evasion.
In a statement on Monday, Usmanov’s Munich-based lawyers called the raids “theatrical” and argued that media reports about them were then used to justify the imposition of EU sanctions, leading to financial losses and reputational damage.
“The [Frankfurt prosecutors] and the Council of the EU have issued a series of erroneous decisions for which UBS is partly responsible, mainly due to the use of its suspicious transaction reports as a tool for the purposes of criminal prosecution and EU sanctions policy,” said Peter Gauweiler, representing Usmanov. , he said in a statement.
“Given this, and taking into account the damage to Mr Usmanov’s reputation and the value of the global assets involved, the effects may be ‘tsunami-like’ for UBS,” he added.
Usmanov, 70, is one of the world’s richest people, with an estimated fortune of nearly $19 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index for 2024. He began amassing his wealth as a senior executive at Russian state gas group Gazprom in the 1990s. building a business empire with stakes in some of the country’s largest mining, industrial and telecommunications companies.
The former major shareholder of Apple, Facebook and Twitter also controls major Russian business newspaper Kommersant and is tied to the largest super yacht ever built, the $600 million Dilbar, which is held by a trust.
That yacht and other properties linked to the billionaire were searched by German authorities in 2022, but a Frankfurt court subsequently quashed all search warrants, with judges criticizing investigators’ reliance on a video interrogation of Usmanov by Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny to justify their investigation. A criminal investigation into the alleged money laundering by Frankfurt prosecutors is still ongoing, the law enforcement agency told the FT.
Many Russian oligarchs and businessmen have filed lawsuits in the EU in an attempt to overturn sanctions the bloc imposed on them after the large-scale invasion of Ukraine. A handful were successful.
The FT reported in 2022 that Uzbekistan was lobbying the EU to lift sanctions against the tycoon, which include an asset freeze and travel ban. In February, the European Court of Justice rejected Usmanov’s appeal against his inclusion on the EU sanctions list.
More news from Owen Walker in London