Pavel Durov, the founder of VKontakte, has filed a lawsuit in the United States against his former project partners and UCP, the fund run by Ilya Shcherbovich. He accuses them of fraud and of extorting a stake in the Telegram messenger app.
The lawsuit was filed on April 30 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The plaintiffs are Durov himself and two of his companies; the defendants are UCP, UCP managing partner Ilya Shcherbovich, UCP partners Viktoria Lazareva and Yury Kachuro, as well as Durov’s former partners Ilya Perekopsky and Axel Neff. Also named as defendants are three of Durov’s former companies that own part of Telegram’s assets: Digital Fortress LLC, Telegram LLC, and Pictograph LLC. According to the complaint, Durov seeks to prove that the defendants conspired to steal Digital Fortress, Telegram, and Pictograph from him, and then use them to unlawfully obtain a stake in Telegram itself. Durov accuses UCP and his former partners of violating several U.S. laws, including the so-called RICO statute — part of organized crime legislation dealing with racketeering and corruption (The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act). He is asking the court to award damages and recognize him as the lawful owner of all Telegram assets. The amount of the claim is not specified in the lawsuit. But if Durov wins, RICO would allow the damages award to be tripled_. http://www.vedomosti.ru/companies/news/27226651/durov-suditsya-v-ssha
What’s interesting is that Durov sued Shcherbovich (whom he explicitly describes as Sechin’s man and the person who “fronts” for Sechin) not just under any statute, but specifically under RICO.
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly referred to as the RICO Act or simply RICO, is a United States federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization. In other words, he is effectively asking the court to recognize Shcherbovich (read: Sechin) as a member of an organized criminal group existing for the purposes of racketeering, blackmail, and corruption.
A kind of post-Soviet version of The Godfather: - Ira dear, get me Colonel Nechiporenko. - Comrade Nechiporenko, Igor Ivanovich will speak with you now. - Nechiporenko, here’s the assignment. At the briefing with Mikhail Ivanych, we decided we want that fifth-columnist Durov to sleep with the fishes. - Yes sir, Igor Ivanovich. I serve the Soviet Union!
And, of course, it is especially telling that all of them are litigating in the Southern District of New York, which more or less completely reveals the shared view of Russia’s investment climate held by Sechin, Durov, Shcherbovich, and Nechiporenko alike.