ST JOHN’S, Antigua (CMC) – The United States (US) Court of Appeal has ruled in favour of Antiguan Prime Minister Gaston Browne and other Antiguan and Barbudan individuals and entities following a request for financial disclosure brought by Russian citizen, Yulia Guryeva- Motlokhov, who had claimed ownership of the Alfa Nero super yacht sold by the government in 2024.

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Last week, Guryeva-Motlokhov, the daughter of a sanctioned Russian billionaire, had asked a federal appeals court panel to support her subpoenas in her attempt to regain control of the 267-foot superyacht previously owned by her father, Andrey Guryev.

Guryev, the founder of the fertiliser company PhosAgro, one of the world’s largest producers of phosphate-based fertilisers, was the owner of superyacht Alfa Nero, until it was seized by the Antigua and Barbuda government pursuant to  sanctions against Russia following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Guryeva-Motlokhov had appealed to the Second Circuit after a Manhattan federal judge denied access to the unreleased financial records of official documents pertaining to the sale of the megayacht. She claimed the documents were necessary for use in court proceedings to stop what she had called the “sham” auction of the confiscated yacht.

Guryeva-Motlokhov had claimed in court filings that her investigators had  “uncovered reports of wide-ranging corruption and illegal activity” within the Browne administration “well above and beyond the seizure and sale of the Alfa Nero.”

In June 2023, the superyacht was removed from the sanctions list so Antigua and Barbuda could liquidate it.

In addition to prime minister Browne, the other targets of the requested document production include Browne’s wife, their son and Antigua’s general accountant and its port manager.

The entities include West Indies Oil Company Ltd, an Antigua-based petroleum storage and distribution company of which the government is a majority shareholder, and Fancy Bridge Ltd, a Hong Kong-based investment firm that owns shares in the oil company, as does Petróleos de Venezuela SA, known as PDVSA.

The state-owned ABS Television and Radio reported Monday that the US Appellate Court affirmed the order of the District Court, rejecting Guryeva-Motlokhov’s application for discovery and quashing the subpoenas for documents that her attorneys had served on the Clearing House and Federal Reserve in the United States.

It said that the ruling means all documents received by Guryeva-Motlokhov’s attorneys linked to the subpoena must be destroyed and supporting evidence provided that this has been done.

The state-owned media house said that attorneys for Browne are exploring recovering at least some of the legal costs incurred in the appellate process.