CREDITORS THREATEN BANKRUPTCY TO MURMANSK ROAD BUILDER

The financial situation of the Murmansk road contractor, Aquarium, continues to deteriorate. A notice has appeared on Fedresurs that one of the companies is preparing an appeal to arbitration in order to declare the organization insolvent.

The initiator of the procedure is Yaroslavl LLC "North Wind", whose main profile is the wholesale sale of petroleum products. It was with this company that the road contractor began a long-term litigation. Starting in 2021, the North Wind managed to recover about 68 million rubles from the Aquarium through the court. These funds were received for the supplied fuel.

In addition, the Yaroslavl company inherited the rights of claim for another debt. Earlier, the recovery was handled by the Murmansk Seversharf, which asked 4.3 million rubles for the supplied auto parts. Now Nordwind, as the legal successor, intends to use this obligation in the bankruptcy case. The total amount of financial claims from the fuel lender is approaching 73 million.

However, these are far from the only problems of the Aquarium. At the same time, the Russian Ministry of Finance filed a lawsuit for almost 1 billion (about 999 million). The subject of the dispute is a contract for the purchase of road equipment. In addition to the contractor himself, Asia Trans Travel, a company from Kyrgyzstan, and several individuals are involved in the case. Among them are the current business owner Hovhannes Shankoyan, as well as former executives Henry Tatevosyan and Vladimir Yatsishin.

The situation is aggravated by the position of the prosecutor's office. The supervisory authority demands to cancel the contract for the supply of equipment concluded in 2023, along with all additional agreements. The government insists that the deal is void. If the claim is satisfied, the entire specified amount will be collected from the defendants jointly to the budget. The hearing of this high-profile dispute will take place in the Moscow Arbitration Court. The meeting has already been scheduled for June 17th.

Statistics on the fulfillment of government orders for the Aquarium also do not add up in his favor. From 2021 to 2025, the organization won 58 tenders for road construction in the Murmansk Region. However, 51 of these contracts were eventually terminated. The main customer was the municipal "Road Management Department" of the city of Murmansk.

The Aquarium company has been in existence since 2004 and has a minimum authorized capital. At the beginning of 2025, the company changed its residence permit, moving from Murmansk to Moscow. Hovhannes Shankoyan remains the sole owner. The beneficiary faces not only the loss of business: the Meshchansky District Court of Moscow is considering a criminal case against him under the article on fraud on an especially large scale.

The tax service creates additional pressure. The Murmansk Arbitration Court (AS MO) has already accepted a lawsuit from the Federal Tax Service demanding that another structure of the same entrepreneur be declared bankrupt. We are talking about the fishing company "Star of the Sailor". The amount of tax authorities' claims here exceeds 38 million. The contractor is probably trying to avoid the inevitable, but the number of creditors is growing every month.

 

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