The Skolkovo Foundation in 2010-11 transferred 93.5 million roubles to the Russian branch of the company Renova Management AG Switzerland affiliated with foundation president Viktor Vekselberg. More than 52 million roubles were also transferred to seven foreign companies. According to the Izvestia, the fact that money provided from the budget for the innovation city development was transferred abroad has already attracted attention of law-enforcement authorities - an inquiry is underway that may result in charges of money diversion and even a criminal case against the fund head and Renova owner.
According to the Interior Ministry, the Skolkovo Foundation transferred about 52.4 million roubles during the 2010-11 period to accounts of the foreign companies Urlich F Kunz & Partners AG, Jurong Consultants Pte Ltd, UBS Swiss Financial Advisers AG, Maxmakers Ltd, Valode & Pistre Management SA and Pierre De Meuron. Besides, 93.5 million roubles were transferred to an account of the Russian branch of Renova, the foreign company Renova Management AG Switzerland. As is known, Chairman of the board of directors of Renova Viktor Vekselberg at the same time is president of the Skolkovo Foundation.
Most of the companies mentioned in the inquiry materials provide consulting services.
A representative of the group of Renova companies, which received more than 90 million roubles from Skolkovo, could not comment immediately on the situation. Skolkovo also could not immediately give comments what services the companies provided and whether they were chosen by a contest. At the same time, Renova board member Andrei Shtorkh, after he was asked by the Izvestia to explain why the funds turned out to be in accounts of companies belonging to Vekselberg, made a statement that Renova and its head invested more than 3.5 billion roubles in the creation of the Russian innovation centre. According to Shtorkh, Vekselberg's personal investments in the inno-city exceeded 25 million dollars.
Personal investments do not relieve of responsibility if the law was violated in the use of funds provided from the budget for Skolkovo, experts note. The Skolkovo Foundation is not a state agency. However, as lawyers explained to the Izvestia, for such structures, the law on non-profit organizations also imposes restrictions on deals with a conflict of interests.
It became known earlier that 3.5 billion budget roubles destined for the science city development , instead of the use for the direct purpose, for a long time were kept in accounts of Metcombank , the final beneficiary of which is Vekselberg, the daily notes. Investigators suspect that the bank during the period used the money in bank operations that resulted in illegal profits for interested persons.
These are not all the facts that attracted attention of controlling authorities. In April, it became known that the foundation planned to transfer 1.6 billion rbls provided from the Russian budget to the Massachusetts Technological Institute. The Audit Chamber's report with the data was made secret.