The UK government has allowed the UK's renowned management company Burgess to pay back wages to crew members of two megayachts linked to a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Andrei Gurjev to the younger ones.
This means that the salaries that have been denied to them until now due to the sanctions that the British Government imposed on Gurjev last year immediately after the beginning of the Russian aggression against Ukraine, will soon be received by the former crew members of the ultra-luxury superyacht "Luminosity", which has been tied up in Marina Porto Montenegro in Tivat.
The company "Burgess" announced for the British magazine "SuperyachtNews" that salaries will be paid by the end of the year. The company that managed the superyacht "Luminosity" informed the master and crew of the yacht on March 10 last year that due to the sanctions of Great Britain and the EU, all the funds at their disposal in connection with the payment of the costs of the yacht and the salaries of its crew were "frozen" and that work was being done that the crew be paid their claims due by then as soon as possible. A little later, the crew was informed that due to the sanctions, all the crew had to stop working with the promise that the money would be paid to them as soon as "Burgess" received permission from the agencies from Greater Bitania and the EU that control the implementation of the sanctions imposed on Russia.
When the superyacht arrived in Tivat, there were 19 other crew members in addition to the captain. A few days later, 11 crew members disembarked from the yacht and since then "Luminosity" keeps the minimum number of crew members required by maritime regulations for safety reasons. The luxury ship, on which its alleged real owner, Andrej Gurjev, has never even set foot, has been lying motionless in Tivat, on a part of the operational coast inaccessible to the public - on jetty V Porto Montenegro, with no indication that it will set sail from the Tivat marina in the near future.
In a statement to "SuperyachtNews", the company "Burgess" clarified that they are still unable to pay fees for any work or services provided to the yachts, which occurred after the date when the owner was placed on the sanctioned list. In practice, this means that the owner or manager of a 270 million euro superyacht still does not have the formal possibility to directly pay salaries to the crew members who have been guarding the ship for the last 19 months, to agencies, suppliers and all other providers of various services to that yacht. Until now, as "Vijesti" unofficially found out, a maritime agency from Bar, which represents the official owner of the yacht in Montenegro, managed to settle this indirectly.
"Luminosity", which flies the flag of the Cayman Islands, although our authorities have never officially seized or banned the sailing of that ship, it has been practically blocked in Montenegro for 19 months until a decision is made on the international level about what will be done with yachts, real estate and other things. valuable assets of sanctioned Russian oligarchs in countries that accept and apply the sanctions of the EU and the governments of the USA and Great Britain, imposed on close associates and supporters of the Russian president Vladimir Putin.
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