Oleg Deripaska ally quits as EN+ bids to fend off US sanctions

A key lieutenant of billionaire Oleg Deripaska on Monday quit the board of controversial metals and energy firm EN+ as the company makes its latest desperate attempt to evade US sanctions.

Maxim Sokov, who stepped down as chief executive in March to be president of the embattled company, is now severing his ties with EN+ following the “unprecedented and unforeseen challenges” faced by the business.

The departure of Sokov, a long-serving aide of Deripaska, now means six directors of EN+’s board have quit since sanctions were announced in April.

It comes two months after EN+’s majority shareholder Deripaska, and a host of Russian companies and tycoons linked to Russian premier Vladimir Putin, were ensnared by US sanctions for alleged interference by the Kremlin in the 2016 presidential election.

The move by the Trump administration threatens to shut EN+, which floated in London last November, out of the world’s banking and commodity trading network, although it received a two-month stay of execution from the US until August 5 last week.

EN+, chaired by former Conservative minister Lord Barker, has appointed Rothschild to sell down Deripaska’s stake to below 50% from 66%, to free it from the impact of the sanctions.

US Treasury officials have said the oligarch would have to cut his stake “meaningfully” below 50%.

Alongside cutting Deripaska’s stake, Lord Barker has appointed headhunters to rebuild the board. Sokov, a lawyer who worked for EN+ for five years, also served a long stint in senior roles at Rusal, Russia’s largest aluminium producer and another Deripaska company, in which EN+ has a 48% stake.

Rusal saw a mass resignation of directors with links to the billionaire two weeks ago but shares in the Hong Kong-listed company have plunged since the sanctions threat. EN+’s stock has dipped nearly 60% since the float last year in the wake of the sanctions, costing investors hundreds of millions.

Sokov said: “En+ is facing unprecedented and unforeseen challenges and I have taken the decision to step down from the company for the sake of its future prosperity in anticipation of implementation of Lord Barker’s plan which I fully support.”

Lord Barker said Sokov had made “a huge contribution” and added that he was preparing to submit new board candidates to the US Office of Foreign Assets Control.