A superyacht linked to the family of Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov can no longer be considered a "frozen" asset under the EU sanctions regime, a Frankfurt court ruled, allowing the shipyard servicing the vessel to demand payment for years of technical maintenance, UNN reports citing Bloomberg.
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It is unclear who ultimately stands behind the trust for which the yacht Dilbar is held, and no conclusion can be drawn that they are subject to sanctions, according to the ruling of the Administrative Court of the German city, issued earlier this month. The authorities have not proven that Usmanov has any influence over the trust, so the vessel cannot be considered a frozen economic resource, the ruling states.
This is the latest twist in the tangled disputes surrounding the world's largest superyacht, commissioned by Usmanov and named after his mother. The German shipbuilding company Lürssen built the vessel about ten years ago and has serviced it in recent years after the tycoon was sanctioned. The company filed a lawsuit, seeking to prove that it is not subject to sanctions and can bill the owners of the yacht Dilbar for maintenance.
Lürssen filed the lawsuit after Usmanov's sister, Gulbakhor Ismailova, who was once the main beneficiary of the "The Sister Trust" that owns the yacht, was removed from the EU sanctions list in March 2025. The Frankfurt court cited this decision to remove Ismailova from the list in its arguments, adding that the name of the trust itself is also not sufficiently convincing evidence of a connection to Usmanov.
The decision may be appealed.
According to the court ruling, a subsidiary trust, as well as the company under which the yacht Dilbar is registered in the Cayman Islands, are on the US sanctions lists, but not on the EU's.
The yacht Dilbar was built in 2016 and includes luxurious amenities such as a 25-meter pool and two helipads. In 2022, the US Treasury Department valued it at $600-750 million. It is not yet clear what the trust plans to do with the yacht. After the tycoon and his sister were sanctioned in 2022, the vessel was in the port of Hamburg.
Usmanov is under US and EU sanctions. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, he is the seventh richest Russian with a fortune of $18 billion.
Usmanov's press service said the billionaire welcomes the court's decision.