Russia's Prosecutor General's Office has dropped a lawsuit seeking to confiscate the assets of Kazakh businessman Timur Turlov, president of the International Chess Federation (FIDE), and entities linked to him, Interfax reported.
«On October 14, a statement withdrawing the claims, signed by Deputy Prosecutor General Tkachev, was received through the court's mailroom,» said a judge of Moscow's Tverskoy Court, which was deciding on a date to hear the case.
In early October, the Prosecutor General's Office filed a lawsuit seeking to turn over to the state the assets of Turlov and entities linked to him. The case concerns funds, other assets, and movable and immovable property worth hundreds of millions of dollars in total, law enforcement sources told Interfax.
Besides Turlov, the defendants in the suit included his affiliated companies Freedom Holding Corp., Freedom Finance Europe Ltd. and W-Empirical Holding Corp., as well as his business partner, entrepreneur Arkady Shchukin.
A pretrial conference in the case had been scheduled for October 15.
As Kommersant earlier suggested, the lawsuit may have been linked to prosecutors' intention to designate Turlov, Shchukin and their companies as extremist, which would allow their assets to be confiscated. Neither the Prosecutor General's Office nor the court has officially disclosed details of the claim.
According to the newspaper's sources, Russian authorities' attention was drawn by the funding of Ukrainian humanitarian projects. Turlov, Kommersant alleged, transferred 1 billion tenge ($2.2 million) to the Ukrainian embassy in Kazakhstan and more than 371.5 million tenge ($820,000) to Kazakh charitable foundations that supported Ukraine. Freedom Holding's European arm, the paper reported, sent 2 million euros through the UNITED24 platform to buy ambulances and for other humanitarian needs.
Turlov renounced his Russian citizenship in 2022 after obtaining Kazakh citizenship. He is the founder, majority shareholder and head of the financial group Freedom Holding Corp., which is incorporated in the United States and listed on Nasdaq.
In Russia, Turlov's group was active in the securities market, but in June 2022 it announced its exit from the Russian market and the sale of its assets to local management. The deal was completed in early 2023, after which Freedom's former Russian assets were renamed.
In late September 2026, Turlov was elected president of FIDE.
Freedom Holding Corp. operates in more than 20 countries, including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan. The group provides financial services, including brokerage, investment advisory, securities trading, investment banking and insurance.
