2023-06-20 19:25:16
The judicial investigation opened by the Paris public prosecutor’s office on September 8, 2022 into the financing of Boris Rotenberg’s real estate assets in France will not fail to lead the police officers responsible for the investigations on the trail of Société Générale. The Monegasque subsidiary of the French bank had to manage the numerous personal accounts of the Russian oligarch, as well as those of his offshore companies based in the very opaque British Virgin Islands.
Numerous confidential documents consulted by The world in the context of the “Rotenberg Files” show how Société Générale relied on its Russian-speaking employees present in Monaco to offer quality service to its Russian client, who spent a large part of his time there before the invasion of the Ukraine by Russia. Among the services offered are account maintenance, investments in financial products and bank loans.
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The business relationship seemed to be in good shape until the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014. Although initially spared by the European sanctions adopted in the process against several Russian personalities – including his brother Arkadi – Boris Rotenberg was placed under American sanctions in March 2014. A delicate situation to manage for the French bank, which must theoretically be accountable to the American authorities and respect the restrictions imposed by the Obama administration. Especially since the oligarch holds financial products denominated in dollars.
Investigation into oligarch Boris Rotenberg
“Rotenberg Files” is a collaborative investigation lasting several months led by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) consortium and around fifteen international media, including The worldbased on an internal data leak at Russian asset management firm Evocorp.
The documents, more than 50,000 internal emails exchanged between 2013 and 2020, were obtained by the Russian investigative media iStories and shared with OCCRP partners. They shed light on the way in which Evocorp has assisted its main clients, including Boris and Arkadi Rotenberg, in the conduct of their commercial and real estate affairs throughout the world, and more specifically in Europe (France, Italy, Spain, Monaco, Cyprus). The “Rotenberg Files” also reveal how the use of tax havens and straw men has helped to mitigate the consequences of American and European sanctions adopted by Western countries since 2014.
Delinquent loans
In this context, the employees of the “Russia office” of Société Générale in Monaco are concerned about certain transfers or changes made among the managers of several offshore companies whose accounts it administers. While anti-money laundering legislation imposes drastic checks on it, the bank does not obtain satisfactory justification from the Rotenberg team, despite multiple reminders.
Société Générale therefore ended up telling Boris Rotenberg that it wanted to close his personal account. “It is no longer appropriate for us to maintain our relationship with you”wrote Alexandre Rousseau, director of private management in Monaco, in February 2017. At the same time, a solution must be found to another thorny problem: several real estate loans contracted by the oligarch, totaling 20 million euros, expired in 2015 and 2016, without the bank being reimbursed.
Because to buy his many properties in France, held directly or through a cascade of foreign companies, Boris Rotenberg has chosen to resort to borrowing. Not out of financial necessity, because his fortune exceeds one billion euros in 2022, according to the magazine Forbes. But debt provides a tax advantage by allowing the payment of property wealth tax to be postponed by several years.
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