Three civil cases are pending in the Commercial Court, in which the official owner of the superyacht "Luminosity", the company "Flying Cloud Overseas Limited" from Guernsey, is named as the defendant.
This was confirmed to "Vijesta" by the spokesman of the Commercial Court, a judge Vladimir Bulatović, who did not provide details about who the plaintiffs are in these three disputes and what the amount of the claim is.
At the end of October, in two of these disputes, the Commercial Court accepted the proposal of the creditors and issued two temporary measures prohibiting the "disposal, alienation and encumbrance" of this yacht, as well as the measure of its departure from the Porto Montenegro Tivat marina. Acting according to the court's decision, the Port Authority of Kotor confiscated the yacht's shipping documents. Provisional measures in both cases were issued at the proposal of the creditors, at whose risk and expense they are to be taken and implemented until the legal disputes have been brought to an end, whereby the purchasers of the yacht are obliged to bear the costs of insuring the ship in the meantime, i.e. to pay the minimum number of members engaged on it the crew.
"After adopting temporary measures in cases I. no. 21/24 and I. no. 43/24, the security proponents initiated disputes before this court, P. no. 192/24 and P. no. 348/24, which proceedings are in progress", said Bulatović.
Cayman Islands-flagged superyacht Luminosity linked to Russian oligarch Andrei Gurjev younger, one of the Russians who were put on the list of EU sanctions introduced due to Russia's aggression against Ukraine. As of March 9, 2022, he is on the list of Russian politicians and oligarchs associated with the regime of the Russian president Vladimir Putin, and to which the EU imposed strict sanctions, including the freezing of their private property. Shortly before that, Gurjev was on the list of those sanctioned by the Government of the United Kingdom.
This yacht arrived in Tivat from the Italian shipyard of the Azimut-Benetti company in Viareggio after the Russian oligarch was placed on the EU sanctions list - on March 10, 2022. Since then, this ship, whose construction cost 275 million dollars, has been tied up in the Porto Montenegro marina. . Just a few days after she sailed into Tivat, "Luminosity" left most of the crew and since then she has been guarded by the so-called "skeleton crew" - the minimum number of crew members required by maritime regulations for safety reasons. That the yacht is Gurjev's was indirectly confirmed by the recent action of the British management company "Burgess", which announced that it had received permission from the British Government to pay the crew of this yacht the earnings that had been withheld from them due to sanctions.
It was confirmed from the Commercial Court to "News" that the two cases that had previously been filed against the official owner of the yacht "Luminosity" with requests for the imposition of a temporary injunction against the owner of the yacht "Luminosity": the Italian ship supply company "Versilia Supply" Serrvices" from Vijaređ, i.e. the company "Adriatic Marinas" (Porto Montenegro) from Tivat.
Last year, the Italian company reported a claim in the amount of €99.929,42, and Porto Montenegro €424.221,79 for unpaid connection and accommodation services. After the Commercial Court rejected the creditors' requests for the imposition of temporary measures in both first-instance proceedings, they appealed. Ruling on appeals, the Council of the Commercial Court rejected the objections, so that currently two other temporary measures imposed in active disputes for which the Commercial Court does not provide information on creditors are valid for "Luminosity".
Although it is subject to disputes that limit the right to dispose of the yacht, it was offered for sale this summer through the website of the broker tower "Denison Yachting", at a price of 135 million euros.
"Vijesti" has unofficially learned that there is an interested buyer for this ship who is ready to pay all the debts of its current official owner to creditors in Montenegro and abroad, who have conducted or are still conducting court proceedings in this regard. The Commercial Court did not answer the questions of "Viiesti" whether the court has any information about the possible interest of third parties in the purchase of the yacht and their willingness to pay off all the ship's debts to the executive creditors who reported them to the Commercial Court.
"What is the official position of the court regarding such a possibility and whether it is at all achievable in practice, considering the valid UN and EU sanctions against Russia related to the Ukrainian war, which Montenegro applies to Russian citizens on the sanctioned list, among which is and the current beneficial owner of the yacht "Luminosity", Mr. Andrej Gurjev Jr.?” is a question to which we also did not receive a concrete answer.
The Cayman Islands-flagged superyacht 'Luminosity' has been linked to Russian oligarch Andrey Guryev Jr., one of the Russians on the EU sanctions list imposed over Russia's aggression against Ukraine.
Otherwise, the practice of rich people who can afford superyachts is to never register them in their own names, but as a rule, in a company, usually from an offshore destination. That company (the so-called shell company) is the official owner of the ship, and to make things even more complicated, the yacht is usually managed by another company (management company) which takes care of the day-to-day running of the ship - paying the crew, maintaining, supplying, applying regulations and standards, etc. In addition, yachts are, as a rule, registered to one of the so-called a flag of convenience - tax havens that, in addition to lower duties for its owner, also provide guarantees of additional confidentiality of data related to the yacht to potentially interested third parties. However, even though the official papers say otherwise, in the world it is more or less unofficially known for almost every mega and superyacht which natural person is its real owner.
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