The Jersey court dismissed Roman Abramovich’s effort to stop the inquiry into the $7 billion money laundering case

• 24.11.2025 11:33

Lawyers for Russian businessman Roman Abramovich failed in a legal challenge to have an investigation into suspected money laundering dismissed and a freezing order over assets worth more than $7 billion lifted, according to legal judgments published this week.

The investigation unfolding in the self-governing British dependency of Jersey will continue and the asset freeze remains in place, a spokesperson for the attorney general told OCCRP.

Abramovich has not been charged with any crime in Jersey. His lawyers said he denies involvement “in any criminal activity whatsoever” and that the decision to investigate him was “undertaken for political purposes and to bolster Jersey’s reputation in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.”

The investigation appears to have begun around the time the former Chelsea Football Club owner was sanctioned by Jersey and the U.K. in March 2022 following Russia’s full-scale conflict of Ukraine two weeks earlier, court documents show.  

Details of the investigation and associated legal proceedings had remained largely hidden until this week when Jersey courts published more than a dozen judgments — some issued more than a year ago. 

The court documents show how Abramovich and four close associates in 2016 and 2017 obtained “high value resident” status under a Jersey government scheme aimed at attracting “ultra high net worth individuals” to move there along with their fortunes. 

The Russian billionaire never took up residence in Jersey, the judgments show, but assets held under two trusts that benefited him were moved there, including more than $7 billion worth in 2021. 

The following April — one month after Jersey sanctioned Abramovich — the attorney general obtained a freezing order over those assets. The order supported ongoing investigations into suspected money laundering offences and breaches of sanctions law, according to the judgments. 

The government of Jersey did not respond to a request for comment.

According to the newly released court judgments, Jersey investigators opened their probe after learning of submissions Abramovich had made more than a decade earlier during a separate English court case, which they suspected suggested he had acquired shares in an oil company through corruption.  

In that case, which concluded in 2012, a High Court judge ruled that Abramovich admitted making “substantial cash payments” in the 1990s to obtain indispensable political patronage and influence, which allowed him to maintain control of Russian oil company Sibneft. Abramovich sold shares in Sibneft in 2005 for $13 billion, and proceeds were subsequently moved to Jersey. 

Abramovich’s lawyers said their client “denies any suggestion that his wealth was [acquired through corruption].” They said the English High Court judgment of 2012 should not be read in that way, and that it “makes no finding that our client broke any law in respect of his business dealings nor was there any finding of corruption by our client.”

Abramovich applied in late 2023 for judicial review of the attorney general’s decision to investigate him. He argued that officials who granted him residency in 2017 were aware at that time of his statements in the Sibneft case, and that Jersey’s decision to grant him residency in 2017 had given unequivocal assurances that his assets were welcome and would not be investigated. 

The case was politically motivated, unlawful, and an “affront to justice,” his lawyer argued, calling it a case of “state-engendered entrapment.”

But Jersey’s Royal Court dismissed Abramovich’s case last year, finding that the former attorney general involved in vetting Abramovich’s application was unaware of Abramovich’s Sibneft comments. The attorney general had contacted a U.K. government official to ask if there was any current or pending investigation into the applicant and was told there were “no significant concerns, issues or adverse traces.” 

Abramovich’s lawyers said the former attorney general “should have been…fully aware of” the 2012 English High Court case because it was publicly available online.

The court also ruled that Jersey’s Chief Minister, who approved Abramovich’s residency application, had no power to assure applicants they wouldn’t be investigated in future, and that the government and attorney general’s office act independently of each other. 

A subsequent appeal filed with Jersey’s Court of Appeal was dismissed in June this year. 

A spokesperson for Jersey’s attorney general said he is "pleased" that applications to appeal against the judgments had been refused, and noted that Abramovich had been ordered to pay the attorney general’s costs.

In separate proceedings, a Jersey court in July gave the government a “final opportunity to comply” with data subject access requests submitted by Abramovich’s lawyers in April 2023, which sought to determine what information the government held on him. 

Abramovich’s lawyers have accused Jersey government officials of conspiracy and bad faith relating to their responses to the requests after the officials searched an email archive that only dated back to 2020. The lawyers told OCCRP Jersey officials have “refused to provide Mr Abramovich with his personal data for the period 2016-2020 in an unlawful breach of Jersey’s Data Protection Laws.” 

A Jersey Royal Court judge ruled that there had been “deficiencies” in the government’s compliance with the access requests and described the government’s litigation conduct as “wholly unreasonable” and “out of the ordinary for any litigant let alone an office holder.”

Maria Sharapova