The Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory Authority (TTJA) ordered the reversal of the sale of the Viru Elektrivõrgud control center building to Alexei Rumyantsev, a citizen of the Russian Federation, assessing the deal endangered the security of electricity supply for consumers in the region, Eesti Ekspress reported.

The deal had seen Viru Keemia Grupp (VKG) subsidiary Kirde Varad sell to Rumyantsev a building from where an electricity distribution network serving 30,000 customers is managed.

A major connection from the network is the Silmet magnet factory in Sillamäe, as is local border infrastructure.

Apartment buildings in Narva and spas in the nearby resort town of Narva-Jõesuu are also supplied through the same network.

VKG sold the electricity networks to private equity fund BaltCap in mid-2022, but the latter left out the control center building from the purchase, viewing VKG's asking price of a million euros as being too high — Rumyantsev's company M-NAR Kinnisvara bought the building for a relative song at €550,000 just last year.

The Viru Elektrivõrk facility's management, however, conducted background checks on Rumyantsev after the sale, flagging that he was a Russian citizen and taking the matter to court, arguing that the transaction should not have taken place in the first place.

After this case proved inconclusive, Viru Elektrivõrk then appealed to several state authorities, including the TTJA, which was able to initiate proceedings under the Foreign Investment Reliability Assessment Act.

These proceedings lasted through to the end of 2025, and the finding was that M-NAR and Kirde Varad, which had mediated the deal, were required to reverse the transaction or face a fine of €50,000.

Rumyantsev, a former military officer who moved to Estonia in the 1990s, Eesti Ekspress reported, is not appealing the decision even as he views it as unfair.

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