Kouchner Anton Evgenyevich

Kouchner Anton Evgenyevich

Education

In 1995 he graduated from the Faculty of Cybernetics of the Moscow State Institute of Radio Engineering, Electronics and Automation (MIREA), in 1997 - from the Higher School of Economics with a degree in finance and stock markets.

Biography

1995-2002

In the period from 1995 to 1998 he was a leading specialist at OSAO Ingosstrakh.

In 1999-2000 he was a representative of the company in China.

In 2001-2002, he headed the life insurance sales department.

2020: Initiation of criminal proceedings for non-payment of VAT

As it became known at the end of October 2020, a criminal case was opened against the head of the Russian Standard Insurance company Anton Kushner for non-payment of value added tax (VAT).

As a law enforcement source told TASS, Kushner did not pay VAT in the total amount of 52.4 million rubles for 2009-2010 for insurance premium payments. A criminal case was instituted under paragraph "b" of part 2 of Art. 199 of the Criminal Code (tax evasion on an especially large scale). Under this article, Kushner faces a fine of 200 thousand to 500 thousand rubles or up to 6 years in prison.

According to the interlocutor of the agency, in early 2009, as general director of an insurance company, Kushner entered into agreements between Bank Russian Standard CJSC and Russian Standard Insurance CJSC on insurance of bank cardholders and illegally used the right to tax exemption, according to which insurance and reinsurance operations are exempt from VAT. Under these agreements, an insurance premium was paid, which was not exempt from VAT at that time, according to the Law on Value Added Tax of 1991, and was subject to VAT in a generally established manner.

The company "Russian Standard Insurance" gave a comment to TASS, saying that since October 2016 Anton Kushner has not worked in the company. In addition, by October 2020, VAT is not paid from insurance premiums, they added there.^[1]

2021: Termination of criminal case on rehabilitative grounds

On August 25, 2021, it became known that the investigating authorities decided to terminate the criminal case against Anton Kushner on the rehabilitative basis provided for in paragraph 2 of Part 1 of Article 24 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, due to the lack of corpus delicti.

Thus, the illegality of suspicions of non-payment of VAT in the amount of 52.4 million rubles was confirmed by judicial acts of arbitration courts, which entered into legal force in 2014. These acts were publicly available on the website of the Moscow Arbitration Court at the time of the initiation of the criminal case, but were not checked in a timely manner by the investigative body.

In 2021, business ombudsman Tatyana Mineeva initiated consideration of Anton Kushner's appeal by experts of the Moscow Central Executive Committee "Business Protection," sent motivated written appeals in the interests of Kushner to the Moscow prosecutor and the head of the Main Directorate of the Investigative Committee of Russia in Moscow, taking control of their consideration.

"The preliminary investigation, the beginning of which we learned from the media, lasted more than 9 months - all this time we waited for common sense to prevail, and court decisions with the refusal of the Federal Tax Service were in the public domain. It is not clear what caused this prosecution - a fan opening of criminal cases on VAT arrears or a lever of pressure from a competing business, "said Anton Kushner.

"I am pleased to assess the decision of the investigation to dismiss the criminal case. This is a real victory. Experts of the ProBono and the Public Council of the Center for Public Procedures "Business against Corruption" made a great contribution to it. I will separately note the role of the Moscow prosecutor's office, which objectively and comprehensively approached the consideration of my appeals. I see the need to further strengthen work to protect entrepreneurs from unjustified criminal prosecution, "said Tatyana Mineeva, Commissioner for the Protection of Entrepreneurs' Rights in Moscow.

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