According to the Paris public prosecutor’s office, French luxury goods magnate Bernard Arnault is being investigated for a financial transaction with Russian billionaire Nikolai Sarkisov.
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The case was brought to light last week by the French newspaper Le Monde, which reported, citing a December 2022 document from the government’s financial intelligence unit Tracfin, that Sarkisov acquired real estate at the Courchevel ski resort in 2018 through a complicated transition in which Arnault allegedly provided a loan through one of his companies.
The prosecutors did not reveal the subject of the preliminary investigation, but they did clarify that possibly suspect financial transactions between Arnault and Sarkisov had been added to the probe following a Tracfin notice.
“A preliminary investigation has been underway since 2022, and… the Tracfin report drawing the attention of the prosecution to operations concerning Mr. Bernard Arnault and Mr. Sarkisov, likely to characterise acts of money laundering, was attached to this procedure,” the prosecutor’s office in Paris stated in a statement.
Bernard Arnault owns LVMH, the parent company of Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Bulgari, Mot, Hennessy, and other luxury brands. Forbes Magazine estimates his net worth at $188 billion, placing him second in the world only to US businessman Elon Musk.
Jacqueline Laffont, Arnault’s lawyer, has described the claims as “as absurd as they are baseless.”
“Who can seriously imagine that Mr. Bernard Arnault, who for the past 40 years has built France and Europe’s top companies, would engage in money laundering to expand a hotel? I think that the senseless nature of these allegations cannot escape anyone,” Laffont said in a statement to Reporters.
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Nikolai Sarkisov, who owns Reso-Garantiya with his brother, also refuted the charges. In an email to CNBC, Reso-Garantia Deputy CEO Igor Ivanov stated that neither the company nor Sarkisov personally were involved in the deal, and that French investigators made no requests for documentation from the company.
“Mr Sarkisov and Mr Arnault have never met,” Ivanov said, adding that “all transactions have been carried out by French companies, through French notaries, by French lawyers on all sides.” This was a typical real estate transaction.”
