Russian oligarch pictured with Putin on day war broke out wins review of freezing order

A Russian billionaire who was accused of evading a sanctions order has been given a second chance to appeal against a freezing order of his UK assets by the National Crime Agency (NCA).

London’s High Court has ruled that Petr Aven can apply for a review of the freezing decision.

Mrs Justice Collins Rice has allowed his appeal after ruling that the lower court made legal errors when it considered his case.

Mr Aven had been accused of using his British companies, which were supposed to manage expenses for his luxury mansions in London and Surrey, to fund his personal expenses.

The NCA had previously told the court that Mr Aven, who has no UK bank account, was allegedly using his wife’s and companies' accounts to fund his lifestyle.

Their investigation concerns the transfer of £3.7m to the UK from an Austrian trust fund in the days before EU sanctions were imposed on him in February.

His companies, Ingliston Management Ltd (IML) and Lodge Security Team Ltd (LST), have been seeking to challenge a decision to maintain orders freezing their accounts. The amount frozen stands at £1.5m.

Mr Aven claims the funds were for six months of payments for living expenses, including school fees and security for his properties.

“Near the time sanctions were imposed on Mr Aven, the NCA was alerted by several banks to an unusual pattern of activity in nine UK bank accounts held by six individuals and companies connected to Mr Aven,” the court heard.

“The HSBC accounts of IML and LST were among them. The NCA obtained from court, on a without-notice basis, freezing orders in relation to all nine accounts, and then a search warrant, and began further investigations.

“IML and LST then went to court to try to have the orders freezing their accounts set aside and/or varied. The district judge refused to set them aside but did vary them to permit the accounts to be used for the benefit of Mr Aven and his family.

“By these judicial review proceedings, the companies challenged the lawfulness of the refusal to set the orders aside, and the NCA challenged the lawfulness of the decision to vary them.”

After hearing the evidence, Mrs Justice Collins Rice ordered the Westminster Magistrates' Court to review its ruling to only partially lift the freezing order.

“The challenge brought by IML and LST on the ground for which they were given permission for judicial review — namely that the district judge was wrong in law to conclude that a change of circumstances was a legal precondition to the power to set aside an Account Freezing Order — succeeds,” she said.

“The court did not apply the correct approach to the determination of the applications before it. Not only did it wrongly modify the threshold test for its power, it did not apply that test — as modified or at all — to the facts and evidence before it, make the necessary findings, go on to consider the set-aside application on its merits and come to a properly reasoned conclusion. The decision to refuse the application must be set aside.”

Mr Aven, who was worth an estimated £4.5bn in February, was placed under sanctions earlier this year over concerns that he is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who he was pictured in the Kremlin with on the day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.