Confiscation of Ice Arena owned by Russian oligarchs to begin in Helsinki
The confiscation of the Ice Arena will begin in Helsinki (photo: iihf.com)
The local government of Helsinki, Finland, will begin the expropriation procedure for the Hartwall Ice Arena tomorrow. It is partially owned by Russian oligarchs, according to Helsingin Sanomat.
At tomorrow's meeting, the process of voluntary sale of the arena by Russian shareholders will be considered. The voluntary sale process precedes the expropriation process.
By the end of March, the local government had been waiting for official confirmation of the voluntary sale but had not yet received it.
Currently, 45% of the arena's shares are owned by structures of Russian oligarchs Roman Rotenberg and Gennady Timchenko. The city authorities are not interested in permanent ownership of the arena. Their goal is to further sell the arena to Finnish owners.
Discussions about the confiscation of the Ice Arena have been ongoing for a long time
In early October, it was reported that Finland is exploring ways to take control of the Hartwall Ice Arena, which was closed due to sanctions against its Russian billionaire owners.
Within a month, it became known that Finland would expedite the procedure for confiscating the Hartwall Ice Arena.
Then Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen stated that the new EU sanctions against Russia are intended to assist Finland in confiscating the Hartwall Ice Arena.
