Putin transferred the Russian branches of Danone and Baltika under the temporary control of the Federal Property Management Agency, he signed the corresponding decree . This drew the attention of the publication The Bell. According to the decree, the Federal Property Management Agency receives shares in these companies owned by foreign firms. In fact, this is nationalization – gratuitous expropriation of other people's assets. The decree was signed on Sunday evening.
Since February 2022, this is the second case in Russia of the nationalization of billions of assets of foreign companies, The Bell notes. Baltika is the second largest Russian brewing company, 100% of the assets are owned by the Danish Carlsberg. Danone is the country's largest manufacturer of dairy products, 100% owned by the French Danone.
Three weeks ago, Carlsberg announced that it had found a buyer for its Russian assets, but did not say who exactly. The company was waiting for a special permission from the government commission. Therefore, Putin's decree may come as a surprise to the Danes.
Earlier, Putin applied the nationalization mechanism to the German Uniper and the Finnish Fortum, taking away assets and giving them to Rosneft and Igor Sechin. Fortum announced this week that it is filing a multi-billion euro compensation claim in international arbitration.
The mechanism, which, apparently, will now be used more and more actively in Russia, was actually developed in Crimea immediately after the annexation, when the local occupation leadership began to adopt “laws” for the gratuitous expropriation of “enemy Ukrainian assets” on the territory of the peninsula. However, in fact, they nationalized, among other things, private enterprises, even Crimeans who re-registered in the Russian legal field. Also, under the banner of “nationalization”, real estate was taken away from people, and villas from Ukrainian oligarchs. In particular, two residences on the southern coast of Crimea changed ownership from Ukrainian businessman Rinat Akhmetov to Gazprom. Later, the local occupation court forced the Crimeans, who lived in a high-rise building next to these villas, to demolish this high-rise building at their own expense. According to the residents themselves, Gazprom did not like the fact that the territory of the once Akhmetov residences was clearly visible from the upper floors.