Russian court freezes assets of major conglomerate

MOSCOW – Sprawling Russian conglomerate Sistema says a court has frozen some of its assets to secure a pending $2 billion lawsuit from Russia’s largest oil company, the state-owned Rosneft.

Rosneft, led by a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, last week sued Sistema for damages related to its ownership of oil company Bashneft that Rosneft bought last year.

Sistema’s CEO spent three months under house arrest in 2014 before money laundering charges related to its purchase of Bashneft were dropped. Russia then renationalized Bashneft, one of Russia’s fastest-growing oil companies at the time, and Rosneft bought it last year.

Sistema said in a statement on Tuesday that it considers the court order freezing some of its assets to be “unlawful, baseless and knowingly dishonest.”