Rishat Safin, and his underpaid domestic staff in Geneva
The amount is not astronomical for the Russian. Rishat Safin, a brother of Ralif Safin – a former vice-president of the Lukoil group, according to Russian Wikipedia – himself headed up a subsidiary of Lukoil, as well as founding the petroleum distribution company Artoil.
With a fortune of hundreds of millions, Safin – despite the
discreetness of his setting up house in Switzerland – managed to find his way
onto the “300 richest in Switzerland” list drawn up annually by the finance
magazine Bilan.
However, 600 square metres of living space and 10,000 square
metres of land don’t take care of themselves. Neither could Safin maintain them
on his own. So, in 2011, he placed an ad in Russia looking for staff. After a
quick interview on Skype, he would pay a plane ticket for the chosen domestic
workers, women for the most part, who would then find themselves in Vésenaz.
Harsh conditions
Tasks varied from cleaning the residence to looking after
Safin’s youngest daughter, and from cooking up his favourite semolina to
polishing the silverware. But conditions were harsh: a week could last anywhere
between 70 and 89 hours, and wages were lower than the minimum offered by
Safin’s company. They also had to endure bullying by his mother, a woman who did
not seem to appreciate the work of the Russian staff.
And if they complained, their passport could be confiscated;
then they would be sent back to Russia.
Between November 2011 and June 2015, a succession of staff
members came and went at the lakeside villa. After months of such high
turnover, the situation eventually filtered through to the SIT trade union,
which reported it to the Geneva cantonal office for inspection and workplace
relations (OCIRT), which in turn launched an inquiry.
According to the sentence order handed down later by the
Office of the Attorney General in Geneva, accessed by Gotham City, the OCIRT
said that its inquiry had confirmed the poor working conditions at Safin’s
residence. It also reported that Safin “purposely refused to provide precise
information in an attempt to evade inspection and prevent the discovery of
breaches”.
Partial conviction
When he appeared before a judge in Geneva, Safin was
reportedly more forthcoming. “The accused admitted to the majority of facts put
to him, except for those relating to the unfair exploitation of employees,”
judge Cédric Genton said in the sentence order.
After the order, Safin decided to pay his staff according to
existing collective agreements. He regularised their status with social
insurance and tax authorities. A case at the Geneva labour court, which had
been launched by the employees themselves, was withdrawn.
But the attorney general’s office still now needs to deal
with some outstanding issues, including the unauthorised employment of foreigners,
the lack of collaboration during the OCIRT inquiry, and possible human
trafficking.
This last charge, however, was not included in the sentence
order and the partial conclusions of June 16, 2020, which noted: “It has not
emerged from these proceedings that the accused exerted any form of coercion on
his household staff in order to exploit their work”.
Since some of the events are too old to be prosecuted, Safin
received a fine of CHF270,000 – suspended for 180 days – a binding fine of
CHF7,500, and CHF600 in legal charges. In the sentence order, he declared a
monthly salary of CHF100,000.
After the affair, he left Switzerland to set up house in
Cyprus, where he also took on Cypriot nationality, according to the recent Al
Jazeera-led “Cyprus papers” investigation.
Safin’s lawyer, Pascal Aeby, declined to comment on the
issue.
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