Suspended sentence: why the owner of Listvyazhnaya received a suspended sentence

On March 25, the Central District Court of Kemerovo handed down a verdict in the high-profile case of the explosion at the Listvyazhnaya mine. As a result of the tragedy that occurred on November 25, 2021, 51 people died and more than a hundred were injured. Mikhail Fedyaev, ex-president of SDS Holding, Gennady Alekseev, ex-CEO of SDS-ugol, and Anton Yakutov, technical director, were found guilty of abuse of office, which entailed grave consequences. The court concluded that the top management of the mine turned a blind eye to blatant safety violations in dangerous production in order to make a profit.

To what terms were those responsible for the explosion at Listvyazhnaya sentenced

On March 25, the Kemerovo Central District Court sentenced the top management of JSC HC SDS-Ugol. It was she who was supposed to ensure the safe operation of the Listvyazhnaya mine, where an explosion occurred on November 25, 2021, which claimed the lives of 51 people, the Investigative Committee said.

The court sentenced Gennady Alekseev, the former CEO of the company, to 5 years and 3 months in a penal colony, and Anton Yakutov, the former technical director, to 5 years. Mikhail Fedyaev, the owner and chairman of the Board of Directors of SDS Holding, received the most lenient sentence — 3.5 years probation.

All three were found guilty of abuse of authority, which entailed grave consequences (Part 2 of Article 201 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). And Mikhail Fedyaev is also accused of violating the industrial safety requirements of hazardous production facilities, which negligently resulted in the death of two or more persons.

The court also deprived the defendants in the case of the right to engage in activities related to the performance of managerial functions in organizations operating hazardous production facilities for a period of one and a half to two years.

The court found the investigation's version that the heads of SDS-Ugol "failed to fulfill their duties to ensure favorable and safe working conditions for mine workers" to be valid. Moreover, they did it "in order to maximize profits."

According to the investigation, the management of the holding was aware that there were gross violations of industrial safety measures during work in the mine, but turned a blind eye to it. And after the tragic deaths of the miners, the mine's management purchased safety equipment "retroactively" in order to "create false evidence of their innocence."

"The defendants in the criminal case did not carry out the measures provided for by the comprehensive program to improve the level of industrial safety and labor protection at the enterprises of JSC HC SDS-Ugol for 2021-2023. Every day, they demanded that the mine workers fulfill the coal mining plan in the presence of violations of industrial safety requirements in the mine's lava No. 823 workings. This led to serious consequences on November 25, 2021," the Investigative Committee said.

The defendants "deliberately did nothing and did not take the necessary actions to bring the mine operated by a subsidiary of Listvyazhnaya Mine LLC into compliance with industrial safety requirements," the Prosecutor General's Office said.

Among the dead were not only miners, but also five rescuers. 106 people were injured. A total of 285 miners were underground at the time of the explosion. The material damage from the tragedy amounted to more than 1.5 billion rubles. Work at the mine was suspended and resumed only in April 2023.

In 2021, Rostechnadzor reported that 127 inspections were carried out at Listvyazhnaya. At the same time, only ten control and supervisory measures are displayed in the Unified Register of Inspections until November 2021. Only one of them, in April 2021, was conducted by the Siberian Department of Rostechnadzor. The mine suspended work nine times, and the total amount of fines amounted to over four million rubles.

The examination found that the explosion of the methane-dust-air mixture in the mine workings occurred due to the high level of methane.

As employees of the enterprise told Izvestia shortly after the tragedy, the management did not stop work at the mine even at a four percent level of methane content, although according to safety regulations it must be done already at 1.5%. According to the miners, this was done in order to fulfill the plan laid down by the mine owners from above.

Who else was convicted of the Listvyazhnaya explosion

This is not the first court verdict against those responsible for the tragedy at the Listvyazhnaya mine. In July 2023, the director of the mine, Sergey Makhrakov, received two years in prison. The court found that he transferred coal to Rostechnadzor inspectors for personal use. In return, they turned a blind eye to violations at the enterprise.

In September of the same year, Sergei Vinokurov, a former Rostechnadzor inspector, was sentenced to three years in prison. According to the investigation, he was one of those who received a bribe in the form of coal from the company's employees.

Two Listvyazhnaya employees, Ilya Smirnov and Artyom Chashkin— were sentenced to four years of probation by the court in the same year. They were found guilty "of organizing a violation by another person of the rules of operation of the automated management system of an enterprise of the critical infrastructure of the Russian Federation." We are talking about the entry by Rostechnadzor inspectors into the archive of the database of false information about the inspection of the mine on November 18, 2021.

In May 2024, the court sentenced Anatoly Lobanov, the former chief engineer of the Listvyazhnaya mine, to four years in prison. According to the investigation, from June to November 2021, he violated the operating rules of the Mikon III automated control system. It is designed for continuous measurement of the volume fraction of methane and other dangerous gases in mining facilities.

As follows from the case file, Anatoly Lobanov "used his official position to exclude or minimize the possibility of stopping the mine in conditions of unacceptable gas pollution."

Why Mikhail Fedyaev was given a suspended sentence

Mikhail Fedyaev, the owner of SDS holding, was the main beneficiary of the Listvyazhnaya mine, but he was not its direct manager, Konstantin Trapaidze, chairman of the Vash Legal Counsel Bar Association, noted in a conversation with Izvestia. This nuance may explain the logic of the court, which sentenced the owner of Listvyazhnaya to the mildest suspended sentence.

"The subtleties of managing the mine's operations could have been inaccessible and incomprehensible to him due to the lack of specialized education and practice," the lawyer said. — The same criteria directly oblige the CEO to engage in control and executive functions and management activities. It is up to the CEO to convince shareholders of the need to suspend the operation of the mine or any production if it is associated with a risk to health and life.

This responsibility of the owner and the CEO should not be confused. Even if the owner of a dangerous production requires the CEO to make a profit at any cost, the latter must insist on his position, even to the point of abandoning his functionality and being fired, Konstantin Trapaidze added. And in case of a threat to human life and health, he has the right to file an application against the owner to law enforcement and supervisory authorities.

In practice, it is not uncommon for the CEO to be given a much harsher sentence than the founder of the organization, Daniel Gorkov, partner of the MILL law firm, confirmed.

"This is largely due to the fact that the sole executive body of the organization, represented by the CEO, directly carries out operational management, while the founder is often less immersed in the organization's activities and does not make decisions that led to the initiation and investigation of a criminal case," the lawyer said.

According to Daniil Gorkov, the punishment imposed on the defendants in the case is severe and is one of the most revealing in its category. However, the convicted top managers of SDS-Ugol, Gennady Alekseev and Anton Yakutov, have almost served their sentences, Konstantin Trapaidze drew attention.

Of the five years of imprisonment imposed by the court, they spent four under arrest, and in fact, they can apply for parole immediately after the verdict is announced. However, given the high profile of the criminal case, the court may not accept these documents for consideration, the lawyer noted.