The Arbitration Court of the Samara Region accepted two claims for the seizure of assets of H&N (formerly Danone Russia), Vedomosti writes, citing data from the file of arbitration cases.
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Their hearing is scheduled for September. Applications to the court were filed by the first deputy prosecutor of the region, Igor Kharitonov . He demanded the removal “from someone else’s illegal possession” of two civil defense protective structures in the buildings of the dairy plant of H&N JSC in the Samara region.
According to the managing partner of Bublikov and Partners, Vladimir Bublikov , the claims affect the buildings of the Samaralakto enterprise, where bomb shelters are located, which cannot be privately owned. According to Anna Barabash, CEO of the legal company Enterprise Legal Solutions , by law such objects can be transferred “for safekeeping” to the persons on whose land they are located, but they are obliged to ensure unhindered access to them and the possibility of using them for their intended purpose. The prosecutor's office could file lawsuits because the owner rebuilt the protective structures or did not know about their existence.
The Samaralakto plant, founded in 1932, is one of the oldest milk processing enterprises in the Volga region. The French holding Danone bought it in 2010. In October 2022, Danone transferred the Russian business to management and excluded these assets from the general financial statements of the concern. After the corresponding decree of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the shares of foreign companies in the Russian subsidiary of Danone came under the temporary management of the Federal Property Management Agency. The nationalization of Danone was canceled only in mid-March 2024. The company completed the sale of its own business in May 2024. The assets in Russia were transferred to the local company Vamin R LLC.
