Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov sues UBS over German probe

Alisher Usmanov has filed a lawsuit against UBS, accusing the bank of triggering a German investigation into the Uzbek-Russian billionaire by submitting “unsubstantiated reports” about his transactions.

The tycoon’s lawyers on Monday said the Swiss bank had submitted “absurd and unsubstantiated, if not knowingly false” reports between 2018 and 2022 to Germany’s Financial Intelligence Unit, the agency in charge of anti-money laundering.

“UBS violated the confidentiality of client data, spread misleading allegations about the client and grossly violated the general personality right,” they wrote in a statement, saying the billionaire had filed a lawsuit against the bank in Frankfurt on June 7.

Under German law, banks are required to file suspicious activity reports if they spot potential red flags that may point to money laundering. Lenders do not generally receive feedback over the quality of such reports and several have been fined for filing them too late.

Usmanov was among dozens of Russian businessmen hit by western sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with the EU describing him as having “particularly close ties” to President Vladimir Putin, something the billionaire denies.

The Frankfurt district court confirmed to the Financial Times that a lawsuit against UBS had been filed but said payment to the court, which is required under German law, had not yet been received.

Usmanov is suing UBS for damages, although a number has not yet been placed on the amount being sought, 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 unlawful. The searches were carried out by German law enforcement as part of a money-laundering investigation into the billionaire.

The tycoon has previously categorically rejected any allegations of money laundering or tax evasion.

In their statement on Monday, Usmanov’s Munich-based lawyers described the raids as “theatrical” and claimed media reports about them were then used to justify the EU’s imposition of sanctions, leading to financial losses and reputational damage.

“The [Frankfurt prosecutors] and the Council of the EU have issued numerous erroneous decisions for which UBS is partly responsible, in particular, due to the use of its suspicious transaction reports as an instrument for the purposes of criminal prosecution and EU sanctions policy,” Peter Gauweiler, representing Usmanov, said in the statement.

“In view of this, and taking into account the damage to Mr Usmanov’s reputation and the value of the worldwide assets affected thereby, the effects for UBS may be ‘tsunami-like’ in nature,” he added.

Usmanov, 70, is one of the world’s richest people, with an estimated fortune of almost $19bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires index for 2024. He started accumulating his wealth while he was a senior director at Russian state gas group Gazprom in the 1990s, before building a business empire with holdings in some of the country’s largest mining, industrial and telecoms companies. 

A former top shareholder in Apple, Facebook and Twitter, he also controls the prominent Russian business newspaper Kommersant and is tied to the biggest superyacht ever built, the $600mn Dilbar, which is held by a trust.

This yacht and other properties linked to the billionaire were searched by German authorities in 2022, but a Frankfurt court subsequently revoked all the search warrants, with judges criticising investigators’ reliance on a video investigation into Usmanov by Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny to justify their probe. The Frankfurt prosecutors’ criminal investigation into alleged money laundering was still ongoing, the law enforcement authority told the FT.

Numerous Russian oligarchs and businessmen have filed lawsuits in the EU in an attempt to annul the sanctions imposed on them by the bloc after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. A handful have been successful.

The FT reported in 2022 that Uzbekistan was lobbying the EU to lift the sanctions on the tycoon, which include an asset freeze and travel ban. The European Court of Justice in February rejected Usmanov’s appeal against his inclusion on the EU sanctions list.

Additional reporting by Owen Walker in London