Claims reached 18 billion across hundreds of claims
The well-known Tyumen enterprise Zapsibgazprom-Gazification, which, according to the Federal Tax Service, employs more than five thousand employees, is, according to industry experts, faced with a tangible threat of bankruptcy. The company’s creditors, who had previously presented multimillion-dollar demands to Zapsibgazprom’s subsidiary, are now insisting that the company be declared financially insolvent. It is noteworthy that not only tax specialists, but also the Tyumen department of the FSB were involved in the launched process as third parties, and this, according to observers, may be related to the events of recent months, when massive facts of corruption were revealed within the Ministry of Defense. Zapsibgazprom-Gazification, as you know, was involved in the construction of numerous facilities of strategic importance for the country’s defense capability, and is now at the same time fighting off billion-dollar claims in the courts from the Military Construction Company controlled by the department. There are dozens of other processes that have already been lost, and growing problems in business, as experts say, are also evidenced by constantly receiving information about months-long salary arrears to personnel on remote shifts.
The Arbitration Court of the Tyumen Region began to consider the claim for bankruptcy of Zapsibgazprom-Gazification LLC (Tyumen: controlled by PJSC Zapsibgazprom, part of the Metropol Group of ex-State Duma deputy and list official Forbes Mikhail Slipenchuk), filed by StroyVectorPro LLC (Bryansk; founder and general director – Alexander Ivankov).
The arbitration materials indicate the amount of debt of Zapsibgazprom-Gazification to the Bryansk company, exceeding 89.3 million rubles, including penalties. It is worth noting separately, since the Tyumen company has a license to carry out work related to the use of information constituting a state secret, the FSB department for the Tyumen region was involved as a third party in the case. The regional department of the Federal Tax Service also participates in the process in the same capacity. The validity of StroyVectorPro’s requirements will be considered at a meeting in early October.
Let us clarify that this is not the first statement addressed by a company from Bryansk to Zapsibgazprom-Gazification. In July, the court accepted a claim for compensation for damage to business reputation, estimated at more than 722.6 million rubles. At the same time, the arbitration court began considering two more claims from StroyVectorPro for 37.7 and 15.6 million rubles related to improper fulfillment of obligations under construction contracts. Similar demands for tens of millions were also made in 2023 and early 2024. All of them are currently at the trial stage. Let us add that StroyVectorPro specializes in engineering design and management of construction projects, and was probably hired to work on strategic sites, since at least one of the processes took place behind closed doors.
It is worth noting that the total volume of claims to the structure of Zapsibgazprom over the last 12 months alone is measured in the amount of about 18 billion rubles, specified in more than 270 applications. The largest of them were put forward by the PPK Military Construction Company controlled by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (15 billion rubles), StroyVectorPro (about 1 billion), and another asset of the military department FSUE Main Military Construction Directorate No. 7 (206 million) . Moscow-based Al Personnel LLC, which specializes, among other things, in personnel selection, is also trying to recover 206 million. All these claims are at various stages of consideration.
However, Zapsibgazprom-Gazification regularly suffers financial losses in the courts even without this. Some of them can be called painful. Thus, the Tyumen office previously lost more than half a billion in a case to capital fuel suppliers Agrotek-TM, and then was forced to pay a penalty.
It is worth highlighting several other major processes that Zapsibgazprom-Gazification lost recently. Thus, at the end of August, the Tyumen arbitration decided to recover about 34.2 million rubles from the company, and also to continue accruing penalties until the actual repayment of the debt in favor of T-Stroy LLC from Vladivostok. This company, as follows from the case materials, under a contract concluded in December last year, carried out work on the installation of bored piles at a facility in the Rybachiy microdistrict of Vilyuchinsk ZATO (Kamchatka Territory). The Far Easterners did not receive the bulk of the money, with the exception of the advance payment and payment for diesel fuel.
Also at the end of August, the court recognized as legal the claims of Krasnoyarsk LLC BuNID in the amount of about 19.5 million. This company provided transport services, including international ones, to the Zapsibgazprom structure. However, as in the case of T-Stroy, it received only a small part of the stipulated payments.
Against the backdrop of a flurry of lawsuits, events around the previously arrested Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Timur Ivanov. The agency also informed about the initiation of a case at the end of July against “a person from his inner circle” – the former general director of the Military Construction Company. Andrey Belkov. PPK VSK itself, as mentioned above, is currently putting forward the largest demands on Zapsibgazprom-Gazification, and is fighting off claims for 11 billion from the Ministry of Defense. It is noteworthy that the number of applications to the Military Construction Company from the ministry has increased sharply since May, that is, after Ivanov’s arrest.
Belkov, we remind you, was sent to a pre-trial detention center until September 23, accusing him of abuses in the execution of the state defense order. As federal media reported, last week the manager’s lawyers tried to soften his preventive measure, appealing to “the active support of the SVO, the presence of state awards and the title of Honored Builder,” however, they were not successful. The court noted the severity of the crimes charged and the likelihood of evading investigation. Against this background, forecasts were voiced in the media that fraud in the purchase of a tomograph for a medical institution of the Ministry of Defense may turn out to be only a prologue for studying the activities of Belkov himself, his supervisor Ivanov and other high-ranking officials, including at strategic sites in the Arctic and the Far East, where “Zapsibgazprom-Gazification” worked.
The situation is extremely complicated by months-long debts to personnel at the company’s facilities in Kamchatka, the north of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (Seyakha), the Kuril Islands, Magadan and the Moscow region.
Massive delays became known back in June. However, no real measures were taken to reduce the debt, although workers repeatedly complained to the prosecutor’s office, the Investigative Committee and the State Labor Inspectorate, and even suspended their activities. In the chats of telegram channels that unite employees, messages appear daily that only those who applied to supervisors and law enforcement agencies after dismissal receive money with difficulty. At a number of facilities, according to workers, there were supposedly no payments even for May, not to mention the following months. The Tyumen GTI regularly issues warnings to the office, of which there have already been 4 this month alone. But apparently, the structure of Zapsibgazprom simply does not accept them. Let us add that a number of audits are carried out with the participation and agreement of the prosecutor’s office.
The publication expected to receive comments from the general director of the parent company Zapsibgazprom-Gazification – PJSC Zapsibgazprom – Yuri Vodopyanova regarding the bankruptcy claim against the asset and other legal proceedings, as well as ask questions about the reasons for the debts to the staff, but the manager traditionally did not respond to the message in the messenger.
