Russian oil tycoon handed suspended sentence for divorce case contempt

London — A Russian oil tycoon was on Wednesday given a suspended 28-day jail sentence in his absence in London for contempt of court after he repeatedly failed to comply with legal rulings made in his bitter multimillion-dollar divorce case.

Judge Richard Harrison last week said Mikhail Kroupeev, the non-executive chair of energy company Gulfsands, had not complied with a series of court orders which followed the collapse of his 36-year marriage to his wife Elena Kroupeeva.

Harrison said Kroupeev, who is residing in Cyprus and did not attend in person on Wednesday despite a court order, had been “arrogant, controlling and profoundly disrespectful, both to your wife and to the court”.

The judge imposed a 28-day prison sentence, suspended on terms that Kroupeev comply with an order to pay just over £195,000 towards Kroupeeva’s legal fees.

Kroupeev is subject to a freezing order covering £38m of his assets in a divorce case his ex-wife’s legal team says will run into many hundreds of millions of pounds.

Kroupeeva’s lawyers said in court filings that the couple separated in “tempestuous” circumstances after she discovered in 2023 that her husband had, for most of the last 20 years, been living a double life with a secret second family in Russia.

The pair, who are both Russian nationals but have British citizenship, moved to Britain in 1993.

As well as Gulfsands, which Kroupeeva’s lawyers said had a contract to export oil from Syria, Kroupeev’s other business interests included Jupiter Energy, which is involved in oil and gas exports in Kazakhstan, and Waterford Finance, which specialises in energy projects.

Her lawyers say the couple’s assets included a £15m house in London, luxury homes in Portugal and Turkey, and properties in Russia worth £10m pounds.

Last week, Kroupeev’s lawyer Michael Glaser said his client denied the allegations about having a double life and apologised for not complying with the orders.

Reuters