Daughter of Russian oligarch fights for return of superyacht Alfa Nero in New York court

Yulia Guryeva-Motlokhov asks the Second Circuit for permission to subpoena Antigua officials over the seizure of superyacht Alfa Nero.

Oligarch's heir challenges Caribbean officials in court over superyacht Alfa Nero

The daughter of sanctioned Russian billionaire Andrey Guryev has asked a federal appeals court in New York to approve her subpoenas of Caribbean government officials. According to courthousenews.com, Yulia Guryeva-Motlokhov seeks through these subpoenas to obtain financial documents and official records relating to the sale of the 267-foot superyacht Alfa Nero.

Guryev, founder of fertiliser giant PhosAgro — one of the world's largest phosphate fertiliser producers — owned the Alfa Nero until the government of Antigua and Barbuda seized the vessel. The seizure followed Western sanctions against Russia following the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Corruption claim against Prime Minister Browne

Guryeva-Motlokhov claims in court documents that senior officials from Antigua and Barbuda orchestrated a corrupt scheme to sell the ship unlawfully after it docked in an Antiguan harbour. Her investigators have also claimed to have uncovered evidence of "widespread corruption and illegal activities within the administration of Antiguan Prime Minister Gaston Browne, far beyond the seizure and sale of the Alfa Nero."

A federal judge in Manhattan, U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman, rejected her subpoena request in June 2025. He granted a motion by Prime Minister Browne, who had intervened as a party in the case at the Southern District of New York, to block the document requests.

Debate over discovery procedures

In his appeal to the Second Circuit, Guryeva-Motlokhov's attorney David Costello, of the firm Boies Schiller Flexner, argued that Judge Furman should have assessed each individual target separately to determine whether her application met statutory requirements. He repeatedly cited the Supreme Court decision Intel Corp. v. Advanced Micro Devices as precedent for commencing discovery for foreign proceedings, even if an appeal is not yet pending — so long as a proceeding is "reasonably anticipated."

U.S. Circuit Judge Barrington Parker, appointed by President George W. Bush, strongly disagreed. He contended that the discovery delay was caused by the magnitude of the requested personal information about foreign government officials requested by the applicant herself. "The timing problem is a problem of your own making," Parker said.

Parker also questioned whether the discovery requests were not premature, given that the contours of the appeal remain entirely unclear. "You don't know what you need to discover. You don't know who the relevant parties will be, you don't know what issues are at stake," the judge said.

United Arab Emirates as protective jurisdiction

Guryeva-Motlokhov, resident in the United Arab Emirates, also claims entitlement to UAE protection for crimes committed against her abroad. She says she is considering bringing criminal proceedings under the Emirati criminal code to hold Prime Minister Browne personally liable for the unlawful appropriation of the Alfa Nero and concealment of the proceeds from the sale.

Browne's defence: case concerns constitutionality

Attorney Steven M. Schneebaum, representing Prime Minister Browne and other targets of the subpoena, rejected the corruption allegations as a distraction. "Corruption of Gaston Browne is not before the court in Antigua," he said. "What is before the court is the constitutionality of the statutory framework under which the ship was seized — this is clearly a false trail."

Schneebaum emphasised that everything that happened after the seizure is irrelevant to the ongoing proceedings in Antigua and Barbuda. "The constitutionality of the seizure is what is at issue in the case."

Targets and entities involved

In addition to Prime Minister Browne, his wife, his son, the general accountant of Antigua and the harbour manager have been named as targets of the requested documents. The entities involved include West Indies Oil Company Ltd., an Antigua-based petroleum storage and distribution company in which the government is the majority shareholder, and Fancy Bridge Ltd., an investment company based in Hong Kong. Petróleos de Venezuela S.A., known as PDVSA, also holds shares in the oil company.

Sale and Schmidt's withdrawal

In June 2023, the Alfa Nero was removed from the sanctions list so that Antigua could liquidate the ship. The yacht was offered for sale exclusively through broker Northrop & Johnson. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt reportedly won a bidding auction in June 2023 with an offer of 67.6 million dollars, but withdrew later due to legal complications.

The three-judge panel of the Second Circuit, consisting of Judge Parker, U.S. Circuit Judge Raymond Lohier (appointed by Barack Obama) and U.S. Circuit Judge Sarah Merriam (appointed by Joe Biden), did not issue an immediate ruling on Wednesday.

The Alfa Nero is not the only Russian superyacht affected by Western sanctions. The megayachts of billionaires Viktor Vekselberg and Suleiman Kerimov were also seized following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Source: Google News AG — Crime