The ex parte arrest of lawyer Dmitry Providin, a former partner at the Bartolius law firm, is widely seen as retaliation by businessman Albert Avdolyan — a close associate of Rostec CEO Sergey Chemezov — for Providin’s role in freezing Avdolyan’s personal assets. Providin said he was surprised by the arrest, as he was never formally notified about the hearing at the Zamoskvoretsky District Court.
The criminal case, opened in May last year, concerns the alleged embezzlement of assets from GMZ. Providin stressed that neither he nor his colleagues were involved in any wrongdoing and that the prosecution is linked to his professional activity, specifically defending clients whose opponents wield significant influence over the judiciary and law enforcement.
The scandal involving Enigma and GMZ began in 2018, when Avdolyan’s company purchased factory shares for a fraction of their actual value, estimated by experts at hundreds of millions of rubles. During arbitration proceedings, the court ordered Enigma to pay over 690 million rubles in unjust enrichment, but the company’s assets were insufficient to satisfy the claim. Chack’s bankruptcy trustee then filed for Enigma’s bankruptcy and requested the seizure of Avdolyan’s assets.
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Avdolyan’s lawyers attempted to shift the liability to Bartolius lawyers, accusing them of orchestrating a scheme to siphon assets from GMZ. The court dismissed these allegations for lack of evidence. After failing in court, Avdolyan allegedly leveraged his connections with law enforcement to initiate a criminal case against the lawyers. Attempts to revoke the attorney licenses of Providin, Tay, and Basistov have so far been unsuccessful.
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