The co-founder and the CEO, Arkady Volozh of the biggest Russian Tech company resigned from his post. This resignation came after the chief executive git picked out by the European Union penalties over the ongoing was between Russia and Ukraine.
The multinational company with its headquarter in Moscow and business location in Amsterdam disclosed the standdown of Volozh from his post on June 3, 2022. The company said that the chief will be handing down his voting powers to the board.
Volozh is said to have taken this step after receiving the European Union penalty that claimed that he aided Russia both materially and financially in the ongoing war against Ukraine.
Volozh cofounded Yandex in 1997 and since then the corporation is widely used in Russia. Yandex is also termed as “Russian Google“. The news released by the corporation has confirmed that it is not on the list of any sanctions issued by the U.S., the U.K., or the European Union itself.
Furthermore, the firm said that Volzo being penalized by the EU and resigning his post will not affect its economical status or bond with partners. However, the stakes of the corporation dropped by 6% on the Moscow stock exchange, after Volzo’s resignation announcement.
The company has been making several efforts to avoid sanctions. At first, it threw out the deputy CEO of the company earlier in March when he was issued a penalty by the EU. Then in April, the firm sold its media businesses to VKontakte, the Russian social media company. The media businesses of Yandex included its Yandex news aggregator and the blogging platform Zen. These businesses were put for sale after getting into controversies for circulating Russian propaganda and not reporting the correct information about the war.
The corporation had already cautioned itself previously that penalties being issued to other corporations might halt it from settling up its debts.
The former Chief Executive though does not hold the majority of stocks in the corporation yet he has a striking impact on it. This is because his family trust is the owner of 8.6% of the corporation and has 45.3 % voting powers of the firm. Volzoh has said that he won’t be giving any directions to the trust to vote till the penalties are in place therefore, the trustees will follow the directions of the board. Adding further he said that he will always assist the corporation and this step was taken by him for the corporation’s benefit.
Moreover, the former CEO has denied the claims based on which the sanction is issued. He said that the claims are fallacious and pointless.