Despite New Concerns, NBA Maintains Comfort With Prokhorov's Finances

The approval of Mikhail Prokhorov's bid to take over the Nets has been delayed due to continued trouble getting final legal clearance for eminent domain proceedings in Brooklyn, where outgoing team owner Bruce Ratner is planning to build Atlantic Yards, a project Prokhorov has invested in. If the Yards aren't built, Prokhorov isn't buying the Nets, so nothing will become final until all Ratner's hurdles have been cleared.

In the meantime, the New York Post reports a New Jersey congressman is bringing attention to alleged business dealing between Renaissance Capital, an investment bank controlled by Prokhorov's investment fund Onexim, and the government of Zimbabwe, which happens to be under deep-set sanctions from the United States government.

Basically, because of human rights violations (including alleged torture and execution of political dissenters), you cannot do business with Zimbabwe's government. The congressman, Democrat Bill Pascrell, Jr., alleges that because Onexim (through Renaissance Capital) has business with Zimbabwe and because Atlantic Yards is being partially funded by tax-exempt bonds, the U.S. government should step in and slap Prokhorov with a penalty, and that the NBA should block Prokhorov's purchase of a wholly U.S.-based business (that being the Nets).

The NBA hasn't directly responded to Pascrell's charge its investigation of Prokhorov -- compulsory with every change in team ownership -- was "disgusting." In a statement given to The Post Saturday and reiterated to FanHouse Sunday, a league spokesman defended the background check, calling it "very extensive and stringent" and reiterating that nothing disclosed caused the NBA pause in its recommendation of approval to the other 29 team owners. Prokhorov needs 23 of 29 votes to be approved by the league.

When asked Sunday by FanHouse whether Pascrell had asked the league to re-open its investigation of Prokhorov or deny Prokhorov's ownership bid outright, NBA officials declined to comment. The NBA also declined to answer questions on who ran the background check, whether the background check for Prokhorov was undertaken with any more depth than those used for previous ownership bids, or whether the league planned to re-open its investigation

Pascrell is taking his case to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, which manages the nation's sanctions programs. The congressman told The Post he will ask the Treasury to investigate Onexim. This isn't Pascrell's first foray into matters of the Nets. When Prokhorov's bid was first made public in September 2009, Pascrell issued a letter to NBA commissioner David Stern expressing concerns with a foreign company controlling the Nets and profiting off a project partially funded by taxpayers. In March of last year, he asked the Treasury Department to block a lucrative naming rights deal for the planned Brooklyn home for the Nets between Ratner and Barclays. Pascrell's request came on the basis of Barclays receiving federal bail-out funds.

Pascrell represents New Jersey's 8th Congressional District, which does not currently include either the Nets' current (for one more game) home of East Rutherford or the team's digs for the next two seasons in Newark.