Berezovsky Said to Gain Hold on $600 Million of Anisimov Cash

Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Boris Berezovsky won a London court order placing $600 million from billionaire Vasily Anisimov’s sale of a stake in Russia’s largest iron-ore producer into an escrow account, said three people with knowledge of the matter.

Anisimov can’t touch almost a quarter of the $2.5 billion that state-controlled VTB Group paid for his 20 percent of mining company Metalloinvest Holding after the U.K. High Court ruling in December, the people said, declining to be named because the ruling isn’t public.

Berezovsky, the self-exiled former billionaire adviser to President Boris Yeltsin, filed a claim in 2009 to recover money he said he loaned Anisimov to buy a mining asset that became part of Metalloinvest, two of the people said.

The court allowed the sale to VTB, Russia’s second-biggest lender, while forcing $600 million into the special escrow account until a decision is made on the case, the people said. The trial will begin in October, an external press official for the businessman said by e-mail, declining to comment on the funds and asking not to be identified.

Anisimov’s legal counsel and VTB’s press service declined to comment when called by Bloomberg.

--With assistance from Yuliya Fedorinova in Moscow. Editors: Torrey Clark, Brad Cook

To contact the reporters on this story: Mikhail Kozyrev in Moscow at mkozyrev@bloomberg.net; Lyubov Pronina in Moscow at lpronina@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Matthew G. Miller at mmiller144@bloomberg.net