The Federal Court of Canada has ruled on the claim of the daughters of Russian businessman Mikhail Fridman, Laura and Katia. The businessman’s daughters asked to be excluded from the Canadian sanctions list.
Canada imposed sanctions on Mikhail Fridman’s daughters in 2022 for their ties to their father. Sanctions were imposed against Mikhail Fridman himself earlier, according to the Canadian authorities, the businessman was an “associate” of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Canadian sanctions were also imposed on Laura and Katia’s mother, but she was later removed from the sanctions list because she divorced Mikhail Fridman in 2005.
According to court records, Katia, born in 1996, and Laura, born in 1993, were born in France. They are now citizens of Russia and France. Laura is also an Israeli citizen.
Katia stated that she had received financial support from her father until May 2022, inclusive. This included living expenses of between 10,000 and 50,00 USD. She also said that she continues to receive $10k in cash gifts from him. Katia has not disclosed the total amount she has received from him in recent years, but she stated that she was “financially independent” at that time. Laura stated that she received a total of $100k from her father between 2019 and 2021, and she has been financially independent since 2021.
Mikhail Fridman is known for his role as the co-founder of Alfa-Bank, Russia’s largest private bank. As of 2020, the company’s assets totaled $61.85 billion. In 2017, Fridman resigned as Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Alfa Group consortium and distanced himself from LetterOne Holdings, an investment group based in London, along with his colleague, Peter Aven, after the introduction of EU sanctions.
