The division of property for 200 billion of the top manager of Eksmo with his ex-wife reached the UK

The scandalous division of property between the top manager of the Eksmo publishing house and his ex-wife may turn into a criminal case. Marina, the ex-wife of the book king and the owner of a billion-dollar fortune Oleg Novikov, accuses him of depriving her of her livelihood. As it became known, after the end of the divorce process, he not only left her without a house on Rublevka, but also without multibillion-dollar incomes. Exclusive details on July 3 were told by Izvestia correspondent Alexander Menyailov.

The family dispute between Russian publisher and billionaire Oleg Novikov has gone beyond the civil procedure. Representatives of the ex-wife filed a criminal complaint.

"We are convinced that these actions are illegal. In this regard, we have contacted the law enforcement agencies. We have submitted applications addressed to Alexander Ivanovich Bastrykin, Chairman of the Investigative Committee," said Lidiya Krasnova, Novikova's lawyer.

Izvestia has reviewed the court's decision on the division of jointly acquired property. Novikova was assigned shares in the authorized capitals of the largest publishing houses, printing houses and digital e-book services.

Thus, almost 43% of the shares in Eksmo publishing house, 48% of Book24 online bookstore and 34% of Tetraprint enterprise, 43% of Chitai-Goroda, 50% of RDC-Almaty, 25.5% of 26% of Mann, Ivanov and Ferber publishing house (MIF) and more than five thousands of shares of AST JSC. These are just some of the high-profile names from the list of companies that, according to the law, were awarded to the businessman's ex-wife after the divorce as part of the jointly acquired property.

"According to preliminary, approximate calculations that we made solely on the basis of publicly available information, the value of the property that our client can claim is 200 billion rubles," the lawyer said.

However, according to the lawyers, the court's decision was not executed.

"During the trial, the charters of a number of legal entities included in the section were amended in such a way that, if there is a court decision, Marina Novikova Shamilyevna cannot join the participants," Krasnova explained.

During the division of the jointly acquired property, despite the petitions of the lawyers, the property was not seized. This had serious consequences. According to representatives of the former spouse, Novikova is unable to use and dispose of the awarded property and is effectively left without means of livelihood.

The lawsuits began back in 2022. When her union with her husband broke up, Marina Novikova signed a document stating not only the land survey, but also the abandonment of the land.

"Marina Shamilyevna, trusting, signed this notary's consent. And after some time, the specified house was presented by Novikov to his mother, who later gave it to her son, Novikov Oleg Evgenievich. Unfortunately, even in this situation, the courts sided with Oleg Evgenievich Novikov," Krasnova said.

Marina Novikova and her three daughters found themselves in a difficult situation: they had an eviction lawsuit on their hands. The house with a total area of more than 3 thousand square meters with a climbing wall, a swimming pool and a gym was replaced by several hundred on the outskirts of the site. The personal items in the safe no longer belonged to them.

The new wife of the Russian publisher was the former participant of the reality show Inessa Shevchuk. Marina Novikova's lawyers believe that in this story we are talking not only about the house and shares in companies, but also about large assets that, according to their version, could have been transferred abroad and not taken into account when dividing the property.

"The lawsuit did not include in the section sufficiently large amounts of money that were withdrawn abroad by Novikov and his financial director Marina Yemelyanova. In particular, they concluded a trust agreement on the withdrawal of funds to the Seychelles, and also acquired a stake in the company Ashet-Atticus Publishing Limited in Cyprus," said Krasnova.

According to these facts, the investigators are conducting checks.

"I would like to note separately that Novikov has real estate in Italy, possibly has Israeli citizenship. In this regard, we have submitted a statement on this fact to the migration service," the lawyer added.

But the questions about the book holding company do not end there. Another episode was heard today in the Zamoskvoretsky court of Moscow. They announced the verdict in the case of the distribution of LGBT literature after the ban of the extremist LGBT movement in Russia. According to investigators, the books continued to be sold, including through structures associated with the book market.

The convicted Artyom Vakhlyaev previously worked for the publishing house "Individual Print", which was acquired by Eksmo Holding in 2023. After that, as follows from the case file, he was transferred to the sales department. In his testimony, Vakhlyaev stated that the new leadership had set him the task of continuing to sell such books in the dark.

A week earlier, another Eksmo employee, Ivanov, was convicted of a similar crime. There is one more detail in this case. The materials include the Kazakh company RDC-Almaty. Its name has already been found in another process — during the division of Oleg and Marina Novikov's property.

It is important to note that the criminal case concerns the sale of prohibited literature, and the divorce dispute concerns shares in book perimeter companies. According to Novikova's lawyers, it was these assets that should have been accounted for as jointly acquired property.

Representatives of the former spouse claim that there are several such episodes. Some of the companies were not included in the court documents, individual shares were transferred or withdrawn, and the value of these transactions is now virtually impossible to estimate.

Another controversial episode is related to the Russian Textbook Corporation. After the court proceedings, Novikov received 6.5 billion rubles. Marina Novikova's representatives believe that this money should also have been taken into account when dividing the property.

Izvestia contacted representatives of the entrepreneur. It turned out that they weren't even aware of what was happening.

"Look, I don't know at all. Let me clarify with Oleg Evgenievich now," said Ekaterina Kozhanova, Oleg Novikov's representative.

The issue of initiating a criminal case is currently being resolved. Novikova's lawyers hope that after four years, their client will be able to receive legitimate property.

Book weeding: Eksmo-AST tops questioned in LGBT propaganda case

During the investigation, the security forces seized dozens of boxes of dubious literature.

On the same day, Moscow's Zamoskvoretsky court sentenced Artem Vakhlyaev, head of the Eksmo publishing house's sales department, to four years in prison on probation in the case of distributing LGBT literature (the international LGBT movement is recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation).