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In early August, the Arbitration Court of Stavropol Region, a state commercial court, froze the assets of Beiersdorf LLC, the Russian subsidiary of Germany’s Beiersdorf, which owns of Nivea and Eucerin cosmetics brands. RBC reported this, citing the enforcement proceedings database of the Federal Bailiffs Service.

According to SPARK, a Russian corporate database, the claimant in the case is the Arnest Group, which had previously acquired the Russian assets of Oriflame’s and Unilever. The injunctive measures were imposed as part of a closed-door trial that has been under way since 5 August.

Beiersdorf LLC is seeking to challenge the freeze on its assets, according to the electronic case file database. The company filed two related lawsuits, in August and early September. In the first, it is asking for the injunctive measures to be lifted in respect of property in the village Pavlovskaya Sloboda in Moscow Region, at 85 and 85/2 Lenin street. According to Yandex Maps, the address is home to a large logistics complex. The second suit was filed with the Moscow Arbitration court, a state commercial court, and no documents concerning those proceedings have been published so far.

Beiersdorf's Russian entity had earlier filed a lawsuit against Arnest with the Moscow Arbitration Court. The company asked the court to declare invalid a notice from Arnest changing the base price of finished products, which the group had sent it in early summer 2026. The claim was accepted for consideration in late July, and the next hearing is scheduled for 15 September.

A source familiar with the proceedings told RBC that the dispute was triggered by a change to a production and supply agreement the two sides had signed in 2023. Under its terms, Arnest manufactured perfume and cosmetics products for Beiersdorf at its plants in Russia. The agreement set a base price for the manufacture of products — aerosol deodorants, antiperspirants and shaving foam. The price could be adjusted no more than once a year, but in June Arnest sent notice of a price increase of almost 35 %. Beiersdorf rejected those terms and proposed its own adjustment, of 8 %.

Beiersdorf began operating in Russia in 1998. The company's local entity is engaged in the wholesale trade of perfume and cosmetics products. Beiersdorf LLC's revenue came to 20.8 billion rubles ($247 million) in 2025 and net profit to 2 billion rubles, according to its financial statements. According to its accounts, Beiersdorf LLC has no production facilities of its own in Russia.

Alexey Sagal's Arnest Group grew out of the Nevinnomyssk household chemicals plant, which makes, among other things, the Prelest brand of shampoos and hairsprays. For many years the company was also a contract manufacturer for global household and cosmetics producers in Russia, making goods under contract at its plants for Henkel, Unilever, Beiersdorf, L'Oréal, Colgate-Palmolive, Coty and Oriflame. Since 2022, the Arnest Group has been buying up the Russian assets of its former international partners. In May 2023, for instance, the manufacturer bought 100 % of the Russian production assets of Sweden's Oriflame for 28 million euros. That same year the group became the owner of the former Russian plants of the Netherlands' Heineken. The business was sold for 1 euro plus an undertaking to repay a 100 million euro debt owed by the Russian subsidiary to its parent company — Arnest fully repaid the obligation in 2025. In October 2024, Britain's Unilever, which makes food products and ice cream, cosmetics and household chemicals (including Dove, Barkhatnye Ruchki, Chistaya Liniya, Chyorny Zhemchug, Domestos, Axe and Rexona), announced the sale of its Russian business to Arnest. Earlier this year it emerged that Arnest had bought the assets of the Russian division of Avon, owned by Brazil's Natura&Co group, and in July Britain's Reckitt Benckiser Group announced the sale to Arnest of part of its Russian household chemicals business — the division that made products under the AirWick, Finish, Vanish, Tiret, Calgon, CillitBang and Woolite brands.