Court in France comes to legal agreement with Swiss company charged with tax evasion on behalf of Russian billionaire

Court in France comes to legal agreement with Swiss company charged with tax evasion on behalf of Russian billionaire.

A FRENCH court announced on Wednesday a financial agreement, accompanied by a fine, with a Swiss company prosecuted for having served as a nominee and for having under-declared the purchase of a villa in Cap d’Antibes on behalf of the billionaire Russian Sulaiman Kerimov.

Swiru Holding AG was indicted for complicity in tax evasion on November 14, 2019. The same day, the oligarch, indicted for complicity in tax evasion committed in March 2019, was placed under the status of an assisted witness.

The company “agreed to pay a public interest fine totalling €1.4 million,” said the Nice prosecution. It has also already returned more than €10.3 million to the French tax authorities through a subsidiary “for tax evaded.”

“The investigations revealed the concealment of part of the price of the sale of the said villa, through the interposition of companies domiciled in particular abroad, including the public limited company under Swiss law Swiru Holding AG. The operating mode thus enabled the various parties to the sales contract to voluntarily conceal part of the sums subject to tax,” detailed the prosecution.