Gibraltar on Tuesday sold a superyacht belonging to Russian oligarch Dmitry Pumpyansky for £35 million (€39.13 million) following its seizure in March under Ukraine war sanctions, judicial authorities said. Gibraltar's Admiralty Marshal, a specialist British maritime court that handles the sale of ships, did not release the buyer's name. The 72-metre vessel, MV Axioma, was seized on March 22 following a complaint filed by the US bank JP Morgan, authorities in the tiny British enclave at the southern tip of Spain said at the time. The move came shortly after Pumpyansky - head of TMK, Russia's biggest manufacturer of steel pipes - was added to the list of tycoons targeted by EU and UK sanctions after Russia invaded Ukraine in February. Gibraltar's Supreme Court had in June ordered that the yacht be sold at auction, with the Malta-flagged Axioma attracting 63 bids. The funds raised will be used to compensate the oligarch's creditors. In December 2021, JP Morgan granted a loan of €20.5 million to a company registered in the British Virgin Islands whose shareholders included a Cypriot firm owned by Pumpyansky. But the bank saw Pumpyansky's inclusion on Britain's sanctions list...
↧