LAWSUIT/PAUL MANAFORT/RUSSIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “A Russian oligarch on Monday [6-11-18] got a court to delay his fraud lawsuit against U.S. President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, citing the need to deal more pressing legal matters such as U.S. sanctions on his businesses and criminal trials facing Manafort. Justice O. Peter Sherwood of New York state Supreme Court in Manhattan signed an order in which all parties agreed to stay the proceedings until Manafort’s trials are complete, ‘whether by verdict, mistrial or plea’, a court filing showed. The lawsuit at issue was by a Cyprus company controlled by Oleg Deripaska against Manafort and his aide Rick Gates in January, accusing them of misappropriating more than $18.9 million earmarked for deals in Ukraine in 2008. Deripaska had made similar legal complaints against Manafort and Gates in the Cayman Islands in 2014 and in Virginia in 2015. James Altman, lawyer for Deripaska’s Cyprus company, Surf Horizon Limited, sent a letter last week to Sherwood on behalf of all parties arguing the case should be put on hold for five months, citing, among other things, U.S. sanctions against Deripaska and Manafort’s need to focus on his criminal trials.”
-Nathan Layne, “Russian tycoon’s suit against Manafort on hold as U.S. sanctions bite,” Reuters, June 12, 2018 2:17 pm