What does the superyacht Amadea seizure and subsequent court-ordered sale have to do with the former Mongolian prime minister? Plenty, according to his lawyers. The case, they argue, set a precedent under which he can clear his name.
In 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Still active, the case seeks to confiscate two luxury apartments in New York City, allegedly bought with proceeds from corrupt copper-mining contracts. Sukhbaatar Batbold, the now-former Mongolian prime minister, allegedly benefitted from using the apartments while in office. Importantly, the DOJ doesn’t say that he owns the property. But, Batbold’s legal team wants him to be able to join the case, to fight the “spurious” corruption claims. In their filing earlier this month, the lawyers cite the rulings in the superyacht Amadea seizure.
Firstly, they make a procedural argument. They claim that the way the federal government treated the yacht case shows that a longstanding fill-the-gap legal precedent applies. Specifically, when federal forfeiture rules for property don’t address a situation, the normal rules for joining a civil lawsuit can apply. In Batbold’s case, the forfeiture rules make no mention of a non-property owner intervening due to harm. He was barred from the 2024 parliamentary elections, for instance, which harmed him politically. Furthermore, Bathold’s lawyers saw he has suffered personal and reputational harm from the allegations tied to the apartments. So, his lawyers say, he qualifies under the standard intervention process.
Secondly, in the Amadea case, the court decided that Eduard Khudainatov, who claimed ownership, was a straw owner and hadn’t suffered harm from the seizure. This resulted in Amadea selling at auction in September 2025. According to Batbold’s lawyers, this means that actual harm, not ownership, matters.
The DOJ sees things differently. In a counter filing, it refutes both points. It notes that federal forfeiture rules do spell out that anyone contesting a pending loss needs to file a formal property claim. Not only did Khudainatov do so, but Batbold hasn’t—and says he doesn’t own the property. The Amadea case also focused on individuals laying claim to ownership, versus a non-owner wishing to intervene. Furthermore, the yacht case had nothing to do with claims of harm. In fact, the DOJ says using the Amadea seizure to back up his argument for injury actually weakens Batbold’s claims. The apartment seizures didn’t cause reputational or career harm.
On a related note, Khudainatov didn’t give up attempts to stop the auction of Amadea last year. Earlier this month, he lost in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In the decision, the judges upheld a lower court’s finding that he was an owner on paper only.
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