Billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, Russia?s 14th-richest person, and his wife, Elena Rybolovleva, have been brawling for almost five years in at least seven countries over his US$9.5-billion fortune.
In a divorce complaint originated in Geneva in 2008, Rybolovleva accused her husband of using a ?multitude of third- parties? to create a network of offshore holding companies and trusts to place assets ? including about US$500-million in art, US$36-million in jewelry and an US$80-million yacht ? beyond her reach.
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She has brought legal action against the 48-year-old Rybolovlev in the British Virgin Islands, England, Wales, the U.S., Cyprus, Singapore and Switzerland, and is seeking US$6-billion.
The suits provide a window into the offshore structures and secrecy jurisdictions the world?s richest people use to manage, preserve and conceal their assets. According to Tax Justice Network, a U.K.-based organization that campaigns for transparency in the financial system, wealthy individuals were hiding as much as US$32-trillion offshore at the end of 2010. Fewer than 100,000 people own US$9.8-trillion of offshore assets, according to research compiled by former McKinsey & Co. economist James Henry.
?For a lot of people, it?s not just the objective of not paying taxes,? Philip Marcovici, an independent Hong Kong-based tax lawyer and board member of Vaduz, Liechtenstein-based wealth adviser Kaiser Partner Group, said in a telephone interview.
?It?s the objective of obtaining the human right to privacy and seeking confidentiality about their financial affairs.?
Van Gogh
More than 30% of the world?s 200 richest people, who have a US$2.8-trillion collective net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, control part of their personal fortune through an offshore holding company or other domestic entity where the assets are held indirectly. These structures often hide assets from tax authorities or provide legal protection from government seizure and lawsuits.
Rybolovlev, who lives in Monaco, made most of his fortune from the sale of two potash fertilizer companies for a combined US$8-billion in 2010 and 2011. He held both companies ? OAO Uralkali and OAO Silvinit ? through Cyprus-based Madura Holding Ltd.
Some of his art ? including works by Van Gogh, Monet and Picasso ? is now held in Xitrans Finance Ltd., a British Virgin Islands-based company, and stored in Singapore. Rybolovlev bought a New York City apartment for US$88-million in 2011 using a trust associated with his daughter, Ekaterina. The penthouse was purchased from the wife of former Citigroup Inc. chairman Sandy Weill, according to divorce documents filed in New York.
Liechtenstein, Cyprus
In the suit, Rybolovleva said the billionaire moved many of his assets, including jewels, furniture and the yacht, under the control of two trusts, Aries and Virgo, that he established in Cyprus in 2005, a few weeks after she refused to sign a post-nuptial agreement he offered her.
Sergey Chernitsyn, a spokesman for Rybolovlev at his Monaco-based family holding company Rigmora Holdings Ltd., said he declined to comment. Marc Bonnant, Rybolovleva?s Geneva-based attorney, also declined to comment.
Since the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008, the laws and treaties that created and sustained the offshore tax-dodging industry and allowed for the kinds of maneuvers used by Rybolovlev have been undergoing a shift toward transparency.
Liechtenstein, once fabled for its banking secrecy laws, began in 2009 to require its financial institutions to hold ? and release when required ? details about the beneficial owners of all accounts held there. Andorra and Switzerland made their own concessions within a day of Liechtenstein.
Money Laundering
Singapore, the heart of Asia?s banking and offshore industry, will make laundering of profits from tax evasion a crime under a law taking effect on July 1. Luxembourg announced on April 10 that it would end its bank secrecy policy in 2015.
Cyprus was bailed out of its financial troubles in March by the European Union, which required the nation to impose a tax on bank deposits of more than 100,000 euros. That month, the country lost US$2.4-billion in deposits, according to data from the European Central Bank.
The shift toward transparency has led many of the world?s wealthiest to reassess how and where they hold their assets, according to Goran Grosskopf, a Lausanne, Switzerland-based economist who has advised several billionaires, as well as the Russian government.
Li, Lee
Li Ka-Shing and Lee Shau Kee, Asia?s two richest men, control parts of their fortunes through offshore structures. Li owns his 43% stake in Hong Kong-based property developer Cheung Kong Holdings Ltd. through namesake trusts and companies in the Cayman and British Virgin Islands, according to regulatory filings. Lee holds his shares in Henderson Land Development Co. through 10 firms set up in the two British island territories and Panama, filings show.
Alisher Usmanov, Russia?s richest man, earlier this year restructured the way he holds his US$19.7-billion fortune, moving the majority of his assets ? including his two most valuable, Metalloinvest Holding Co. and OAO MegaFon, worth US$12.7-billion combined ? under the control of British Virgin Islands-based USM Holdings.
He controls at least one asset ? a 30% stake in London soccer team Arsenal worth US$225-million, which he shares with a partner ? through Red & White Securities. The holding company is based on the Channel island of Jersey, a Crown dependency of the U.K. that has threatened to sever ties with the country after being criticized during 2012 for its tax policies.
Koch Industries
U.S. energy billionaire George Kaiser?s US$13.5-billion fortune benefits from the US$3.4-billion in assets held by his tax-exempt Kaiser Family Foundation, according to filings with the U.S Internal Revenue Service. The charity paid US$110-million for a liquid natural gas tanker in 2003. It then signed an exclusive agreement that gave control of the ship to Woodlands, Texas-based Excelerate Energy LLC, a for-profit gas delivery operation Kaiser controls with publicly traded German electric utility RWE AG.
Paolo Rocca, an Italian billionaire living in Argentina, is continuing a cat and mouse game with the Argentine government that was started by his grandfather in 1949. The family first established its San Faustin SA holding company in Uruguay that year, moving it to Panama in 1959, to Curacao and then to Luxembourg in 2011, using side entities in the British Virgin Islands and the Netherlands from which to control it.
?Girlfriend, Wife?
A small part of the US$15.3-billion fortune controlled by Texas billionaire Elaine T. Marshall, 70, is based in Liechtenstein, where her late husband, E. Pierce Marshall, started a foundation for their grandchildren, according to his will. The Dallas resident controls almost 15% of Koch Industries Inc., the second-largest closely held company in the U.S., after inheriting the stake in 2006.
Many of today?s wealthy remain focused on finding places to minimize their taxes and avoid double taxation, Grosskopf said. Mario Gassner, Chief Executive Officer of Liechtenstein?s Financial Market Authority, said there are other reasons the wealthy seek discretion.
?If you are married and have a girlfriend in another country, you may have a lot of assets that perhaps you don?t want your wife to know about,? he said. ?Or perhaps you are looking for a solution for your children to finance university studies, or you?re not in good relations with them and you don?t know what is going to happen to your fortune in the future.?
Russian billionaires create entities in the British Virgin Islands because they find its legal system, which is based on British law, more attractive than their own, Valery Tutykhin, an attorney with John Tiner & Partners, a Geneva-based law firm that specializes in wealth management, said in a phone interview.
The Cayman Islands are popular among billionaires because they don?t impose any type of income or investment taxes on funds organized in the Caribbean country, according to a 2013 taxation report by Amstelveen, the Netherlands-based tax and accounting firm KPMG International.
Delaware is the legal home to more than half of the corporate entities in the U.S. The state?s favourable tax laws cuts companies? tax burdens by an average of 40%, according to a 2011 study by Jacob Thornock at the University of Washington Foster School of Business. Delaware also doesn?t require officers and directors to be U.S. citizens, and allows them to remain anonymous, according to its business code.
Limited Liability
There are other structures, such as the Dutch stichting, the Liechtenstein foundation, and the German gGmbH, that billionaires can use to control their assets.
Ingvar Kamprad, who controls Ikea Group, the world?s biggest home-furnishings retailer, fled Sweden for Switzerland in the 1970s in what he said was a protest of his home country?s tax policies. He placed shares of Ikea into a Dutch foundation in the 1980s, and later put the company?s intellectual property rights into a Liechtenstein foundation.
The transfers removed Kamprad, the world?s fifth-richest man, from any direct ownership of Ikea. He is credited with the wealth by the Bloomberg index because he controls those entities. The billionaire disputes that he controls the company.
Per Heggenes, a spokesman for Stichting INGKA Ikea, the owner of the Ikea Group, said in an interview last year that Kamprad?s goal was to protect Ikea. The multiple layers of ownership serve as a deterrent to takeover, he said. The foundations, if kept intact, will hold the ownership of Ikea in perpetuity.
Monaco Resident
Dieter Schwarz, Germany?s second-richest man, created a gemeinnuetzige Gesellschaft mit beschraenkter Haftung ? a limited liability company with a charitable purpose ? in 1999 to hold his Lidl and Kaufland discount supermarket chains, which form the largest closely held food retailer in Europe.
The 73-year-old controls a US$23.6-billion fortune through the Neckarsulm, Germany-based Dieter Schwarz Stiftung gGmbH, a tax-exempt entity that had more than 30 million euros designated for charitable giving through October 2012 ? about 0.1% of Schwarz?s net worth ? according to Gertrud Bott, a company spokeswoman. The retail chains are overseen by his company, Schwarz Group.
In the U.K., structures that help billionaires avoid taxes are attracting increasing public scrutiny, according to Chizu Nakajima, a co-director of the Center for Research in Corporate Governance at London?s Cass Business School. Billionaire Philip Green controls Arcadia, the clothing retailer that includes the Topshop and Topman fashion chains, through London-based Taveta Investments Ltd., according to filings with the U.K.?s Companies House registry.
Wife?s Dividend
Taveta Investments is owned by Jersey-based holding company Taveta Ltd., the documents show. Taveta Ltd. is controlled by Green?s wife, who is a Monaco resident. The arrangement enabled a 1.2 billion-pound (US$2.3-billion) dividend paid by Arcadia to Green?s wife in October 2005 to go untaxed, according to an article published in London?s Guardian newspaper.
Green, who didn?t respond to a request for comment, defended the arrangement in a November 2012 interview with the Financial Times newspaper. He said the structure was legal, and that Arcadia had paid 2.3-billion pounds in taxes since 2002.
Establishing an offshore account remains cheap and easy, according to Tutykhin. The typical structure costs about US$1,500, he said, though he has seen ones marketed by Russian students for US$200. Even the most-reputable firms don?t charge much more to establish an offshore structure, he said, though billionaires will often spend ?tens of thousands? of dollars a year on lawyers to manage their holdings and assure discretion.
?Get Out?
Those wealthy individuals should stop searching for new tax havens to hide their assets, said tax advisor Marcovici.
?We live in a world where you only have two choices: play by the rules of the country you live in, or get out if you don?t want to play by the rules,? he said.
Bloomberg News
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Public release date: 4-Apr-2013
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