Russian oligarch and Putin ally Oleg Deripaska is suing Paul Manafort and Rick Gates over millions of dollars and using Special Counsel Robert Mueller's indictment as part of his evidence against the two.
NPR:
Deripaska's company, Surf Horizon Limited, alleges Manafort and his business partner Richard Gates misappropriated millions of dollars. The lawsuit was filed in a New York state court. Deripaska had earlier brought a similar proceeding in the Cayman Islands.
The suit says the pair "vanished more than $18.9 million" that Surf Horizon Limited attempted to invest in a group of Ukranian cable and Internet companies known as Black Sea Cable.
It cites Mueller's indictment as "further support for Surf's realization" that Manafort and Gates had used their companies to "wrong Surf."
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Deripaska's lawsuit seeks punitive damages of $25 million, compensatory damages of "more than $1.1 million" plus interest and legal fees of "no less than $1,750,000."
The business agreement between Manafort and Deripaska goes back more than a decade, and the lawsuit is just the latest chapter in a nearly seven-year dispute.
But in spite of ongoing legal troubles between the two, Manafort reportedly reached out to Deripaska through an intermediary in July 2016 and offered the oligarch private briefings on the Trump campaign. And in October 2017, an NBC News investigation revealed "a newly discovered $26 million loan between a Manafort-linked company and Deripaska that 'brings the total of their known business dealings to around $60 million over the past decade."
Paul Manafort Sued By Russian Oligarch's Company Over Business Deal (NPR)
Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska sues Manafort and Gates in N.Y. (NBC News)