Petr Aven

In September 2018, attorneys for Aven, Fridman and Khan filed another suit against investigative firm Fusion GPS and founder Glenn Simpson alleging defamation from the Steele report. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon has yet to rule on the suit.

Aven is one of many Russian oligarchs named in the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, CAATSA, signed into law by President Trump in 2017.

In May 2017 Aven, along with fellow Alfa Bank owners Mikhail Fridman and German Khan, filed a defamation lawsuit against BuzzFeed for publishing the unverified Donald Trump–Russia dossier, which alleges financial ties and collusion between Putin, Trump, and the three bank owners. In October 2017 Aven, Fridman, and Khan also filed a libel suit against the private-investigation firm Fusion GPS and its founder Glenn Simpson, who had commissioned former MI6 agent Christopher Steele to compile the dossier, for circulating the dossier among journalists and allowing it to be published. In May 2018, the Kremlin released a statement noting that Aven, Fridman and Khan were not representing interests of Putin or the Russian government. The statement followed a meeting between the Kremlin, Aven and Fridman. In April 2018 Aven, Fridman, and Khan filed a libel suit against Steele in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, but the suit was dismissed with prejudice the following August.

Petr Aven is also the author of some scientific papers and articles on economic and trade issues and is quoted in the financial and trade press on matters related to the Russian economy and trade policy. In 2015 Petr Aven and Alfred Kokh published Gaidar’s Revolution: The Inside Account of the Economic Transformation of Russia, drawing on their experience of the Russian Government and the former First Minister for the Economy, Yegor Gaidar. In his review of the book, John Lloyd of the Financial Times called it “an illuminating study of the reformers who sought to revive Russia’s post- Soviet economy.”

In 2015 he was named number 301 in the richest people in the world, with a worth of around $5.1 billion.

LetterOne acquired assets from German utility business E. ON in October 2015, in a deal worth $1.6bn, that saw the Luxembourg-based group gain Norwegian oil and gas resources. In the following month, LetterOne also announced their intention to deal with Brazilian telecoms company Oi SA, and boost their presence in the mobile phone sector there.

On 3 November 2015, Petr Aven received the Woodrow Wilson Award for Corporate Citizenship in recognition of his contribution to corporate and public service to U.S.-Russia relations, at the 2015 Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Awards Dinner. The award was given to Mr Aven in recognition of his many achievements in building understanding between Russians and Americans during his career.

In 2013, Aven joined the Board of LetterOne Group, an international investment business founded by Mikhail Fridman and focused on the telecoms, technology and energy sectors. The L1 Group owns companies – and has equity investments in companies – with operations in 32 countries around the world.

In 2007, Mr. Aven became Chairman of the Russia-Latvian Business Council.

Since April 2006, Petr Aven has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.

In 2005, a United States district court in Washington, D.C. dismissed a 2000 libel suit by Aven and fellow Alfa Bank owner Mikhail Fridman against the Center for Public Integrity over an online article which included a suggestion that they had been involved in drug-running and organized crime; the federal judge ruled that there was no evidence of actual malice on the part of the publication and that Fridman and Aven were limited public figures regarding the public controversy involving corruption in post-Soviet Russia.

He has received a number of international awards, including the best manager in the financial services sector in Russia in 2004 by Institutional Investor.

In October 1994, Aven met Alfa Group's Mikhail Fridman, and soon became an Alfa Bank shareholder serving as a member of the Supervisory Board of the Alfa Group Consortium. From 1994 until June 2011, he served as the President of Alfa-Bank Russia. Currently Aven is a Member of the Board of Directors and Chairman of the Board of Directors of ABH Holdings S.A. Aven is also Chairman of the Board of Directors at AlfaStrakhovanie Group, Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors of CTC Media, Inc. In 2012, the Alfa Group together with Viktor Vekselberg of Renova Group and Leonard Blavatnik of Access Industries sold their aggregate 50% stake in TNK-BP to state-owned Rosneft for $28 billion.

Aven is also a recognised art collector. His first art purchase was a still life by Pavel Kuznetsov in 1993, and afterwards he began collecting mostly pre-Soviet Russian art, as well as art by artists of other nationalities. Works from his collection have been lent to the Jewish Museum in Moscow, the Tate in London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and recently the Royal Academy. In May 2015, pieces from Aven's private collection were put on display at New York's Neue Galerie in an exhibition examining early twentieth century Russian art and its relationship with German art of the time.

Concerning Russian economic reform in the early 1990s, he and other reformer colleagues had consulted with foreign academics by 1990 on trying to find a new system. When Boris Yeltsin became president, he appointed Aven with the task of making the ruble convertible and finding a solution to foreign debt. Aven went on to become the Minister of Foreign Economic Relations for the Russian Federation (1991–1992), serving as Russia's representative to the Group of Seven and conducting a number of high-level trade and economic missions to Western capitals. In 1993 he joined the Russia's Choice movement and was a candidate for State Duma.

After graduation from university, Aven was a senior researcher at the All-Union Institute for Systems Studies at the USSR Academy of Sciences and then spent time at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria (1989–1991).

Petr Aven graduated from Moscow State University in 1977 and holds a PhD in Economics (1980).

Petr Olegovich Aven (also transliterated Pyotr Aven; Russian: Пëтр Олегович Авен ; born March 16, 1955) is an International businessman, economist and politician. He heads Alfa-Bank, Russia's largest commercial bank. He is a member of the Board of Directors at LetterOne Group. L1 Group was established in 2013 to invest in international projects in energy, telecommunications and technology.