The Prosecutor General's Office filed a lawsuit to seize the property of the St. Petersburg Humanitarian University of Trade Unions, which ended up in the ownership of the family of Rector Alexander Zapesotsky, reported «Kommersant».
The agency considered that the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia illegally registered the university building in its own name, and Rector Alexander Zapesotsky uses it for personal enrichment. The lawsuit in the Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region was filed on Monday by Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov. The defendants are named as the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia (FNPR) and the St. Petersburg Humanitarian University of Trade Unions, and third parties — Zapesotsky, the Leningrad Federation of Trade Unions, and the General Confederation of Trade Unions.
The Prosecutor General's Office indicated in the lawsuit that the university's annual revenue, up to a billion rubles, is formed from student tuition fees. But Rector Alexander Zapesotsky reports losses, artificially inflating the university's non-core expenses on advertising, inventory purchases, premises rental, and utility payments.
Also, under the guise of a non-core asset, he transferred to his son Yuri the building owned by SPbGUP, with an area of more than 2 thousand square meters, using the offshore company Norris N.V. (Seychelles), to which he sold the building for 3.2 million rubles at a market value of 200 million rubles.
In 2008, the company re-registered the property to Yuri Zapesotsky, who profited from it for ten years, and in 2018 sold this property for 200 million rubles.
In addition, FNPR illegally obtained ownership rights to a dormitory, educational buildings, a dance pavilion, an educational and household building with a hotel, a garage, a transformer substation, and a boiler house.
According to the prosecutor's office, part of the money obtained from the university was invested by Zapesotsky in capitalizing his real estate management business in Monaco and Estonia, as well as in acquiring elite real estate in France (a house worth 291 million rubles).
Zapesotsky was a confidant of Anatoly Sobchak in the 1996 St. Petersburg governor elections. The candidate's campaign headquarters was headed by Vladimir Putin. Since 2012, Zapesotsky became a confidant of Putin himself. In April 2024, Vladimir Putin awarded him the Order of Alexander Nevsky for «merits in scientific and pedagogical activities, training of highly qualified specialists, and many years of conscientious work».
Photo: official website of SPbGUP