[7][8] The Sedelmayer vs. Russian Federation saga, which included approximately 140 different legal proceedings throughout the world is an illustration of the difficulties one might encounter when trying to enforce investment arbitral awards against a state.
During this time Sedelmayer enjoyed good relations with Russian officials, including the future President Vladimir Putin, then the First Deputy Mayor of St Petersburg, with whom he worked on security for the 1994 Goodwill Games.
The Russian Government refused to pay compensation but he pursued his claim at the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, under the 1989 Bilateral investment treaty (BIT) between Germany and the USSR.
At the 2006 ILA air show in Berlin Sedelmayer's efforts in German courts to seize exhibits led the Russian delegation to flee on a $30-million Tu-204-300 which they believed was under threat.
From 2005 Sedelmayer received regular payments from a court-appointed sequester supervising apartment buildings owned by Russia and leased to the housing authority of Cologne City.
By December 2008, the first of numerous public auctions went ahead; Russia was forced to bid for her own buildings and thus ended up paying Sedelmayer.
As a matter of fact, Russia's reaction shows that the country is not safe for those claimants who try to retrieve what they lost as a result of corruption or illegal withdrawal of property.
"[22] Eventually in 2014 Sedelmayer received proceeds from compulsory court auctions in Cologne and Stockholm, and thus was finally compensated for the lost properties worth.