Rotenberg was born in 1957 in a family of
Jewish descent. He was very involved in
martial arts between 1968 and 1978, particularly
judo. He trained alongside Vladimir Putin In 2001, he and his brother founded the SMP bank, which operates in 40 Russian cities with over 100 branches, more than half of them in the
Moscow area. SMP oversees the operation of more than 900
ATM machines. Based on his friendship with Vladimir Putin, his company became closely aligned with
Gazprom. From July 2013 to 17 July 2015, Rotenberg was the president of
FC Dynamo Moscow. He is also the president of the Russian
Judo federation. After leaving Dynamo, he bought another football club,
FC Dynamo Saint Petersburg, which was eventually moved to Sochi under the name
PFC Sochi and was promoted to the
Russian Premier League for the 2019–20 season. As a result of the
annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, the
federal government of the United States under
Barack Obama blacklisted the Rotenberg brothers and other close friends of the
Russian president, including
Sergei Ivanov and
Gennadi Timchenko. In July 2014, the
European Union also blacklisted Boris Romanovich Rotenberg's company Giprotransmost for conducting the feasibility study of the construction of a bridge from Russia to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. On 27 March 2014, both
Visa and
MasterCard executed the boycott of SMP Bank, Investcapitalbank and Investitsionny Soyuz (Investment Union) bank. However, just a few days later, it was announced that the institutions do not meet the criteria under which the
U.S. Treasury introduces
economic sanctions. Rotenberg was named in the
Panama Papers. Rotenberg also holds
Finnish citizenship. In January 2020, Finnish national broadcaster
YLE reported that Rotenberg had lost a court case against four Finnish banks in Helsinki District Court. Rotenberg had complained that the banks did not grant him basic banking services and he was not able to make even small transfers using his Finnish accounts. Helsinki District Court resolved the lawsuit by deciding Rotenberg has no right to basic banking services because he does not permanently reside in
European Economic Area. Rotenberg was ordered to pay the four banks' legal costs of 530,000 euros. On 22 February 2022, Boris along with his nephew
Igor Rotenberg had sanctions imposed on them by the United Kingdom government as a result of the
Russo-Ukrainian crisis. On 3 March, the United States imposed sanctions on Rotenberg, his wife, and sons. In April 2022, Rotenberg had sanctions imposed on him by the
EU. == Motorsport ==