King & Spalding repaid $800,000 fees to 'Putin's banker'

On Monday, the 53-year-old Russian oligarch was handed a two-year jail sentence in the High Court after being found guilty of contempt. The sentencing judgements handed down by Ms Justice Rose have shown that law firm King & Spalding 'repaid' $800,000 worth of fees from Mr Pugachev that were found to be in contempt of a $2bn global freezing order brokered in 2014 by Hogan Lovells on behalf the Russian Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA). It is understood that Mr Pugachev had entered into a funding arrangement under which he had disposed of a portion of future assets from a bilateral investment treaty (BIT) claim in exchange for an immediate payment of $800,000, reportedly 'in desperation to keep King & Spalding as his lawyers.' 

'Putin's banker'

Mr Pugachev, once nicknamed 'Putin's banker' for his former links with Kremlin, has been long pursued by the DIA over his involvement in the collapse of his Russian bank Mezhprombank. The DIA, Mezhprombank's liquidator, alleges that Mr Pugachev transferred hundreds of millions of dollars from his own company to a private bank account in Switzerland and that he is 'vicariously responsible' for the bank's collapse. Mr Pugachev, whose partner is author Alexandra Tolstoy, fled to France last year after claiming that his life was in danger in the UK. His representative in London has dismissed both the present sentence and the warrant out for his arrest as a 'technicality', as Mr Pugachev is a French citizen who 'does not fall under the jurisdiction of the English courts.' Sources: The Lawyer; The Guardian