“The board would decide whether there’s a problem with it,” Litvin said in a telephone interview. “They would look to see whether this would affect the league’s ability, for example, to enforce its rights against the Nets. In the unlikely case the Nets didn’t make a revenue-sharing or tax payment, would the presence of the company in Russia affect our ability to enforce the rights of the other 29 teams.”
Litvin said the league “did a lot of research” into Canadian law before placing teams in Vancouver and Toronto, adding, “We got comfortable with Canadian-based companies owning NBA teams.”
The NBA now has one team in Canada, the Toronto Raptors. The Vancouver Grizzlies moved to Memphis in 2001.
Economic Sanctions
Prokhorov, who ran for Russian president in 2012, may also be looking to keep his investment out of the reach of U.S. lawmakers as President Barack Obama threatens to step up economic sanctions against Russia in response to its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula, according to Veles Capital and Sberbank Asset Management.
The conflict already has cost Prokhorov, Russia’s eighth wealthiest man. His net worth has slumped $811 million this year as the selloff in Russian markets eroded the value of his holdings in stocks including OAO Uralkali, the world’s biggest potash maker.
Prokhorov -- who is worth $12 billion according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates -- declined to comment on whether his decision to register the Nets in Russia was related to the sanctions.
Approval Unlikely
“Preliminary discussions with the NBA were held in spring 2013, and at that time, the league indicated its willingness to work with us in the event we needed to re-register the ownership vehicle of the Nets as a Russian entity to comply with the Russian law,” said the Onexim statement.
David Stern, who stepped down as NBA commissioner on Feb. 1, declined to comment on Onexim’s assertion that the league indicated a willingness to assist.