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A court decision declaring Yukos -- once Russia’s largest oil company -- bankrupt has finally brought to an end the sad story of confrontation between private business and a powerful state. But the ruling also highlighted the unhealthy nature of the country’s raw-materials-based socio-economic system. On August 1, the Moscow Arbitration Court ordered the bankruptcy and liquidation of Yukos, a decision that various commentators gloomily described as either a “death sentence” for the company or as its “funeral.” As was widely expected, the court upheld a vote one week earlier by Yukos’s creditors. The latter, led by Russia’s Federal Tax...

PRAGUE, July 19, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- The controversial initial public offering (IPO) of Russia's Rosneft oil company on London's Stock Exchange was launched today after a last-ditch attempt to derail the flotation failed. The beleaguered Russian oil company Yukos contested the IPO, saying it amounted to the sale of stolen property because Rosneft acquired Yukos's main oil-production arm in a disputed auction. But that argument was shot down by a British court.

The suspense and hype surrounding the initial public offering of Russian state-owned oil giant Rosneft -- now expected to take place next week -- has mounted as major oil companies British Petroleum (BP), China National Petroleum Corp., and Malaysia's Petronas have expressed a firm interest in participating. Reports say BP wants to buy a $1 billion stake in the company. The price for one share of Rosneft has risen to the upper end of the $5.85- $7.85 range. The company says it expects to raise well over $11 billion from the sale of up to 14.9 percent of its shares....

US Court Makes YUKOS Happy // Mazeikiu nafta will be sold to a Polish company for $1.425 billion. US court lifted the ban on YUKOS foreign asset sales. Apparently, Dutch company Yukos International UK, that owns 53.7 percent of Lithuanian refinery Mazeikiu nafta (MN), will sign an agreement to sell these shares to Polish PKN Orlen for $1.425 billion today. After that, US court is to resolve the most painful issue for all parties interested in YUKOS—how the returns on MN sale shall be distributed among the disfavored oil company’s creditors. Federal US Bankruptcy Court lifted the ban on YUKOS...

Flat production is causing high prices across the nationWASHINGTON - For most of the past decade, Russia, the world's second largest oil producer and exporter, provided the extra supply needed to meet the world's growing thirst for oil. Now its production is flat and the world oil market is drum tight. The timing of Russia's failure to expand oil production couldn't be worse, and experts differ on why it no longer can be counted upon as a swing producer. Some say President Vladimir Putin is deliberately keeping production flat to keep prices high and expand Russian influence. Others think its...

The Russian government has been served with a lawsuit by U.S.-based shareholders of Yukos through diplomatic channels and will have until mid-May to respond or face a possible default judgment ordering the payment of up to $9 million in damages, a lawyer for the shareholders said Wednesday. Thomas Johnson Jr. of the Washington-based law firm Covington & Burling said the U.S. State Department informed him by telephone Tuesday that the Russian government had been served the summons on March 14 as part of a lawsuit brought by 12 holders of Yukos' American Depositary Receipts against the government, a group of...

Mar 6 2006 6:16PM Former Yukos security official faces new murder charges MOSCOW. March 6 (Interfax) - The Russian Prosecutor General's Office has brought new charges against former Yukos security service official Alexei Pichugin, who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence. "First Deputy Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Yury Biryukov has confirmed an indictment and forwarded Court a criminal case opened against [former] director of the Yukos fourth internal and economic security department Pichugin, Vladimir Shapiro, Gennady Tsigelnik, Yevgeny Reshetnikov, Mikhail Ovsyannikov and Vladislav Levin to the Moscow City," a spokesman for the Prosecutor General's Office told Interfax...

An imprisoned oligarch will not allow his spirit to be broken by jail, reports our correspondent ONE man is a former Soviet dissident who spent four years in the gulags and fifteen working as a bus driver before becoming an Orthodox priest. The other is a former Communist youth activist who became the richest man in post-Soviet Russia before he fell foul of the Kremlin and was thrown in jail.

The first public statement of Khodorkovsky issued from the penal Colony was published. "Since October 16th, I have been living in the land of Decembrists [December 1825 Russian insurgents against Imperial power], political prisoners and uranium pits. I'm 600 Km [400 miles] away from Chita, 6500 KM [4000 miles] away from Moscow. The Kremlin has tried to completely isolate me from the country and the people; moreover--it tried to exterminate me physically. Therefore, those in power proved themselves once more unable to have an honest and open discussion with me (and to have a straight talk with the real opposition...

Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko, in Washington with top Russian business leaders to rebuild confidence in U.S.-Russia energy ties after the legal onslaught against Yukos, has been caught up in a lawsuit by U.S. shareholders in the shattered oil company. A spokesman for the plaintiffs said Khristenko was served with the lawsuit just after meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush on Monday -- and hours after a speech asserting that Russia was not engaged in renationalizing its oil and gas sector. Twelve shareholders of Yukos American Depositary Receipts filed suit against the Russian government, four state-owned energy giants...

MOSCOW Sep 28, 2005 — Gazprom, the world's largest natural-gas producer, has agreed to buy a majority stake in the Sibneft oil company for $13.01 billion in a deal that will significantly further the state-controlled company's stature in the oil sector as Russian President Vladimir Putin moves to recapture government influence in the lucrative energy industry. Gazprom, which came under state control in June when the government increased its stake to above 50 percent, has long been groomed as a state energy company to rival Saudi Arabia's Aramco. The companies said an agreement was signed Wednesday between Gazprom and Sibneft's...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - As the crown jewels of Russia's oil industry are drawn back into the Kremlin's embrace after being sold into private hands in the 1990s, some analysts are concerned they may be mismanaged under state ownership. By reclaiming firms bought for a song in a scandal-tainted sell-off of state companies in the 1990s, which made a handful of people fabulously rich and caused popular outrage, the Kremlin sees itself setting a historic grievance to rights. But the government could also be putting in place a system akin to Italy in the 1970s and 1980s, when private capitalism rubbed...

Yukos founder 'on hunger strike' From CNN Producer Max Tkachenko Tuesday, August 23, 2005; Posted: 2:40 p.m. EDT (18:40 GMT) MOSCOW, Russia -- Imprisoned Russian oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky has gone on a hunger strike to protest the treatment of his business partner, who is being held in solitary confinement, his lawyer Anton Drel told CNN. Khodorkovsky said he will stop the strike as soon as Platon Lebedev is released from solitary confinement. On May 31, a Russian court found Khodorkovsky and Lebedev guilty of tax evasion and other crimes and sentenced each to nine years in prison. The court...

The Audit Chamber has confirmed that the Federal Treasury transferred $5.3 billion to a state-owned bank on Dec. 30, 2004, the same day that state-owned oil major Rosneft bought rival Yukos' main production unit, the business daily Vedomosti reported Monday. The report is a further indication that Rosneft may have dipped into state coffers to buy the Yuganskneftgaz, the Yukos unit auctioned off to recover a towering tax debt.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. State Department refused to comment on Russia's request to hand over Russian businessman Leonid Nevzlin, currently on international wanted list. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the department has never commented on extradition requests, adding that there is no bilateral agreement on extradition between the United States and Russia. Casey said he had no information on whether Nevzlin is still in the United States. On Tuesday, Russia asked the United States to hand over the former top Yukos manager, who has reportedly been in the Unites States for a week. On Wednesday, Nevzlin asked the U.S....

MOSCOW. July 5 (Interfax) - The Russian Prosecutor General's Office has completed a probe into new episodes in the criminal case against Yukos' former security official Alexei Pichugin. Deputy Prosecutor General Vladimir Kolesnikov announced on Tuesday that the three new episodes involve charges of committing and attempting to commit murders, including attempts on the lives of the mayor of Nefteyugansk Vladimir Petukhov, businessman Nikolai Rybin and former Yukos employee Nikolai Kolesov.

Moscow - Authorities have detained the former chief of a Yukos subsidiary, the embattled oil company confirmed on Monday, saying the allegations against Antonio Valdes Garcia were unfounded. A website established by lawyers for the jailed former Yukos CEO, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, had said on Friday that Garcia was detained the day before upon arrival in Russia. A Yukos spokesperson said Garcia, a native of Russia, also had Spanish citizenship. Garcia was general manager of Yukos subsidiary Fargoil until last year, Yukos said on its website. He was being held in Moscow while being interrogated by Russian prosecutors, it said. The...

Capital flight from Russia is heading towards levels not seen since just before the financial crisis in 1998, according to a leading debt-rating agency. About $33bn (£18.2bn) was moved abroad last year, underlining concerns about the business climate and the lack of trust in the country's institutions and its property rights, Fitch Ratings said in a report issued yesterday. The agency calculates that capital flight has reached $100bn over the last four years. "Not only is it [capital flight] unusually large, but it is also rising. Last year's total was the highest since 1997, when Russians headed for the exits...

On a cold afternoon in the winter of 2004, Vladimir Putin summoned his long-serving prime minister to his Kremlin office. "Unfortunately," Putin told him, "I have to fire you." Mikhail Kasyanov was stunned. The Russian president gave no reason for the abrupt dismissal. Facing a national vote on his reelection just two weeks away, Putin had chosen a surprising time to shift governments. As he absorbed the news, Kasyanov assumed he would have to leave after the election. No, Putin corrected the prime minister. "I mean now." The power of paranoia had gripped the Kremlin. For four years, the men...

Khodorkovsky sentence hurts Russia's reputation - U.S. embassy MOSCOW. May 31 (Interfax) - The U.S. government plans to give detailed consideration to the sentence against former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Moscow told Interfax on Tuesday. The United States understands the sentence is a rather complex document and Khodorkovsky and Lebedev have the right to appeal, the spokesman said. A variety of aspects of the Yukos affair, among them reversible tax claims, frozen accounts that could not be used to pay taxes, and dubious auctions have raised a...