A law firm says Eduard Khudainatov is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the forfeiture of the Amadea, testing whether legal title alone can support a claim. The question follows a lower-court finding that the claimants had transferred possession, control and financial interest in the yacht under a September 2021 agreement, leaving them with bare legal title.
Ford O’Brien Landy LLP said in a release dated Oct. 30 that it filed the petition for Khudainatov and Millemarin Investments Ltd. Khudainatov claimed ownership through Millemarin, which held uncontested legal title to the yacht. The firm’s release did not identify when it submitted the petition.
After a four-day evidentiary hearing, a district court found that the September 2021 agreement shifted possession, control and financial interest in the Amadea from Khudainatov and Millemarin. The deal set a price of €225 million, which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said had been paid by late October 2021. On June 1, the appeals court affirmed an order striking the claim for lack of constitutional standing.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) alleged in a 2023 complaint that Suleiman Kerimov, a sanctioned Russian national, was the yacht’s beneficial owner. The complaint also alleged at least $1.2 million in transfers through U.S. financial institutions for upkeep, provisioning and other expenses from September 2021 to April 2022. The Second Circuit said it did not need to decide whether Kerimov was the beneficial owner.
Ford O’Brien Landy characterizes the dispute as a four-to-four split among federal appeals courts over whether legal title alone is enough to establish standing. The firm says its petition invokes a 2008 Supreme Court ruling that let assignees of legal claims sue even when they had agreed to pass the proceeds to another party. Applying that ruling to ownership of property is the petitioners’ argument. Adam C. Ford, the firm’s founding partner, said the ownership issue “should have been decided by a jury.”
The district court entered a default forfeiture judgment on March 11, 2025, and a final judgment on March 18, after no other claimant appeared. The DOJ inspector general reported that the government sold the yacht for $187 million on Oct. 10, 2025.
The Supreme Court docket lists Oct. 29, 2026, as the extended deadline for filing. The extension application had requested a deadline through Oct. 30. The firm’s Oct. 30 release does not give the petition’s submission date.
