Lars Windhorst is here, Lars Windhorst is there. The 50-year-old financial acrobat is known for keeping authorities, lawyers, courts and not least the media on their toes. The self-made entrepreneur has unjustly lost his former reputation as a „prodigy“. Like a magician, he has survived insolvencies, lawsuits and debt collection proceedings for years.

Perhaps it is his business partners that bring us closer to the Windhorst phenomenon. In the accessible papers documenting his transactions, new people with exotic-sounding names, typically from faraway countries, keep appearing. The names often become public when a dispute arises. As is the case in Switzerland right now. Windhorst ended up there four years ago while fleeing from the British justice system.

Apart from his place of residence, which has changed from London to Zug, much has remained the same. This is also suggested by two recent judgements by the Zug Cantonal Court. On 19 December, the court of first instance ordered the busy investor to pay compensation of 52 million euros plus 25% interest on arrears to a company called PTC Trustees GY Limited based in Cyprus. GY stands for Gavril Yushvaev. According to the court document, he is an Israeli investor based in Switzerland.

Although the man is said to have billions in assets, he is completely unknown in Switzerland. Before the current furore, there was only one entry about him in the national media database. This was dated August 2023, and centred on a US biotech company in which Yushvaev was mentioned as a major shareholder alongside former Credit Suisse CEO Brady Dougan.

The documents on the biotech company filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission contain a little more information about Yushvaev, who is said to have served nine years in a Soviet prison camp after being convicted of a violent crime in 1980.

Perhaps it is a coincidence that Windhorst found this man in order to offer him a „100% secure, absolutely watertight and completely risk-free solution“ for a business with which „a substantial profit“ could be realised „immediately“. However, the contact does not appear to have come about by chance. Windhorst initiated it via Yushvaev's son, according to the court document.

The details of the disputed transaction are described in legal language over 30 pages. What sounds complicated is basically simple: Windhorst needed someone who was willing and able to take risks and immediately plug a financial gap with many millions in order to prevent a creditor revolt somewhere in Windhorst's empire.

Yushvaev was supposed to take over shares in the surgical robotics company Avateramedical from Windhorst for 65 million euros, so that the latter could sell them on to third parties with the „substantial profit“ for the benefit of both. The deal fell through. Windhorst paid only 15 million euros five months late. Yushvaev waited another two years and filed a lawsuit with the Cantonal Court of Zug in February 2024. Windhorst's feints, tricks and allegations used in his defence stood no chance.

The same court came to the same conclusion a month later in another case. The plaintiff: a company called Riverside Investments based in Dubai. It named players such as Yusr Sultan and Mohammed Imran. The court documents say nothing about their motives for doing business with Windhorst. According to the court, the case is „not particularly complex“. It concerns two securities transactions in which Windhorst simply ignored his duty to fulfil the contract. None of the decisions are final, but they are so clear-cut that the court is keen to know more about the motives of all those involved.