The Russian national had been acquitted of his involvement in bribing Azerbaijan with millions of dollars but the prosecution appealed the decision and a new trial was expected to start in 2019.
However, according to real estate records obtained by TT, the former manager, Yevgeny Pavlov, has sold his properties around Stockholm before leaving the country.
There is the risk that he won’t return for the trial, “but he probably wants to clear his name. It should be in his interest to come,” prosecutor Thomas Forseberg said according to TT.
The manager’s lawyer declined to comment about the case.
Though he had been acquitted, other managers at Bombardier still face trials.
Bombardier was suspected of moving millions of dollars to unidentified Azerbaijani officials through a company registered in the United Kingdom, according to an investigation by OCCRP and TT back in March 2017.
At the time of Pavlov’s arrest in March 2017, Forsberg said that Pavlov “has offered and promised, along with other Bombardier Group employees, bribes to an official of the Azerbaijan railway authority."
Pavlov was indicted on the charges in August 2017.
The bribes occurred over railway signaling equipment and won Bombardier the $350 million deal to supply Azerbaijan with an interlocking system for railway switches and signals, prosecutors have alleged.
Prosecutors believe Bombardier moved millions of dollars in bribes through Multiserv Overseas Ltd., a company in the U.K. that appears to exist only on paper.
OCCRP and partners discovered that Multiserv Overseas then sells the identical equipment back to Bombardier’s Azerbaijan affiliate for an inflated price of over 450 percent. As an intermediary, Multiserv made a profit of $85.8 million in the deal. The money was then channeled offshore.
