Billionaire Kerimov’s daughter has found lawyers in Russia to challenge the sanctions.
The Moscow law firm Asari Legal has announced that it will represent Gulnara Kerimova, the daughter of senator and billionaire Suleyman Kerimov, in investment arbitration proceedings against Switzerland. Switzerland froze Kerimova’s real estate assets because of her father.
Gulnara Kerimova herself is not under Swiss sanctions, but her father has been on the sanctions list since 2022.
The justification for the sanctions reads as follows: “Suleyman Kerimov is a leading Russian businessperson and member of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation and of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure and Parliamentary Governance. He is former owner of the financial and industrial group Nafta Moscow. The net worth of Kerimov and his family is estimated at USD 9,8 billion. He received large sums of money from Sergei Roldugin, who is the caretaker of the wealth of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin.”
Asari Legal reported on its victories in the fight against sanctions once. According to the bureau, its senior lawyer in the sanctions practice, Alexandra Khizunova, provided legal assistance to one of the individuals from whom the United States lifted sanctions on December 9, 2025. At that time, the US Treasury removed Kirill Astrakhan from the sanctions list, who held the position of director of corporate business at Kaspersky Lab in 2024, and Nikita Sobolev, whom the US considered to be the director of Malberg Ltd, a Malta-based company involved in the acquisition of dual-use equipment for end-users in Russia.
