Stoli Group’s U.S. corporations have filed for chapter following an August ransomware assault and Russian authorities seizing the corporate’s remaining distilleries within the nation.
As Chris Caldwell, the President and International Chief Government Officer of Stoli USA and Kentucky Owl, the 2 Stoli Group subsidiaries, stated in a Friday submitting, this comes after the August assault severely disrupted its IT programs, together with its enterprise useful resource planning (ERP) platform.
The cyberattack additionally pressured guide operations throughout the group, affecting key processes resembling accounting, with full restoration not anticipated till early 2025.
“In August 2024, the Stoli Group’s IT infrastructure suffered extreme disruption within the wake of an information breach and ransomware assault,” stated Caldwell.
“The assault induced substantial operational points all through all corporations throughout the Stoli Group, together with Stoli USA and KO, as a result of Stoli Group’s enterprise useful resource planning (ERP) system being disabled and a lot of the Stoli Group’s inner processes (together with accounting capabilities) being pressured right into a guide entry mode.”
Caldwell added that the incident additionally prevented the Stoli U.S. subsidiaries from offering monetary reviews to lenders who claimed the 2 corporations had defaulted on a $78 million debt.
One month earlier, in July 2024, two distilleries valued at $100 million, the group’s final remaining property in Russia, have been additionally confiscated in reference to the designation of the Stoli Group and its founder, Yuri Shefler, as “extremists.”
This designation was associated to their humanitarian help efforts and advertising and marketing campaigns supporting Ukrainian refugees throughout the ongoing struggle in Ukraine.
The Stoli Group has additionally spent dozens of tens of millions of {dollars} as a part of a long-term courtroom battle spanning over 23 years and a number of jurisdictions, together with america, with Russian state enterprise FKP Sojuzplodoimport over rights to the Stolichnaya and Moskovskaya vodka logos.
This authorized battle stemmed from a March 2000 govt order by President Vladimir Putin to “reinstate and defend the state’s rights” in vodka logos whose rights have been purchased by non-public corporations within the Nineties.
Shefler, the corporate’s founder, was additionally pressured to flee Russia in 2002 on account of politically motivated and “fabricated” expenses linked to his criticism of the Putin regime. Since then, Shefler was later granted asylum in Switzerland and UK citizenship after Russia’s extradition requests within the 2010s have been denied.