A Moscow-based entrepreneur who established his own business in 2014, specializing in equipping enterprises with computer technology, components, and software, signed a government contract in 2020 to supply office equipment to the Moscow Bridge Construction Trust.
By signing this contract, worth 230 million rubles, he agreed to pay a 10% bribe based on the value of the supplies. However, when the contract implementation began, new sanctions were imposed on Russia, restricting the supply of certain types of computer equipment and components and refusing to renew software licenses. Some of these sanctions directly affected the company that was the contract’s customer.
Our client wished to terminate the contract. However, the Russian government contract system is structured such that once signed, the contractor cannot refuse to fulfill obligations even with significant market changes and a lack of initial profitability. Otherwise, the contractor faces inevitable criminal liability.
To navigate the situation, the entrepreneur decided to modify the contract’s equipment specifications to cheaper alternatives that met the required technical characteristics and quality. The more complex issue was obtaining illegal access to software to ensure usage for several hundred employees of the Bridge Construction Trust.
With no legal solution available, the contractor resorted to violating international sanctions in collusion with the customer to avoid criminal liability for contract non-fulfillment.
Due to the illegality of these actions, the customer increased the contractor’s demands to 20%. After receiving the required equipment, the payment terms were raised to an unachievable 30% of the contract price. Facing a dire situation and to avoid further issues with unpaid suppliers, the entrepreneur agreed to the untenable conditions, used the funds received to pay suppliers, and settled his company’s taxes.
Realizing the severity of his situation and with little time before facing problems created by the disgruntled customer, he reached out to us.
Our lawyers first notified Interpol that the General Prosecutor’s Office would soon request his international search for extradition. This move proved effective, as the customer, now an adversary, used his vast administrative resources to initiate legal proceedings. The police quickly opened a criminal case for "contract non-fulfillment," classifying the entrepreneur's actions under Articles 159.4 and 210 of the Russian Criminal Code, which are severe crimes punishable by up to 10 years in prison without a statute of limitations.
In addition to the immediate initiation of criminal proceedings, the investigation used a new, previously unknown method to accelerate international search announcements. The method involves requesting an international search from the National Central Bureau (NCB) of Interpol in Russia at the time of initiating the criminal case and before the two-month search period ends, allowing them to request a search from Interpol’s headquarters before the court's decision on a absentia arrest.
With our combined efforts, we managed to evacuate the entrepreneur and his family to France. Upon arrival, they immediately applied for political asylum.
However, the customer’s pursuit of the entrepreneur did not end there. Information "accidentally" appeared in the media, suggesting that the entrepreneur had circumvented EU sanctions against the Bridge Construction Trust.
To address this, we had to involve French media to anonymously expose the customer’s actions and reveal the corruption schemes he used to bypass sanctions, not just in this case but throughout his operations.
The actions of our French legal team and our rights defenders yielded the desired results, and the entrepreneur was granted political asylum in France.
From this successful experience, we must note that each extradition process is a "race against time," and the significant resources and experience of the Russian General Prosecutor’s Office should not be underestimated. Interpol operates independently of global political conditions, and despite deteriorating international relations with Russia, all requests from Russia are received, processed, and acted upon. The only limitation regarding Russia is the lack of application of the "Diffusion" principle, which means requests for the arrest of Russian citizens at their actual location bypassing the central Interpol bureau in Lyon are not possible.