"Sibneft" has renounced its debts and escaped criminals - Yukos shareholders. Website prigovor.ru reminds what happened on February 3, 2004
On this day, on February 3, 2004, a colossal plan to create in Russia the biggest oil company “Yukos-Sibneft” ended in failure – representatives of the main shareholders of Yukos and “Sibneft”, after a certain pause, signed a protocol on making a “reverse deal” on dividing the companies merged in one in October 2003, when Mikhail Khodorkovsky declared with pathos: “The successfully realized in less than half a year the unprecedented deal, integrating the two companies, has demonstrated the highest professionalism of our united management team”.
GOING BACK TO THE INITIAL POSITION
The signature of the documents on the “reversed deal” in February 2004 meant that the participants of the process were going to the initial positions, including giving back to each other, as per checklist, the whole "dowry" in form of shares, money, etc. "It means that the owner of "Sibneft" in the nearest future will become 92% of the shares sold to Yukos, and Yukos will become 26% of its shares and 3 billion U.S. dollars paid for the shares of "Sibneft".
From the part of the Oil Company “Sibneft” the protocol was signed by David Davidovich, the head of the Moscow affiliate of the company “Millhouse Capital” managing the assets of the company’s main shareholders, from the part of Yukos – the lawyer of the shareholders Anton Drel”.
ON THE INSTRUCTION OF KHODORKOVSKY
It would seem that all working questions, including “sharp edges”, were discussed, compromised solutions on them were found, confirmed, and signed.
But then, in the news feeds of the agency Bloomberg, emerged the fugitive swindler Leonid Nevzlin and, as an owner of a stock of shares, started to demonstrate indignation. It turned out that he had been not informed neither about this agreement nor about the withdrawal of the compensation demands. Thereat, the lawyer Anton Drel, who had signed the agreement on behalf of the shareholders, said that he had followed the direct instructions of Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The failure of the deal even today causes Nevzlin’s indignation – even in strictly corporate questions he sees “the hand of the Kremlin”.
But the investigation assessed differently “the professionalism of the managing team” “of the most transparent” oil company – on October 25 of the same 2003, Khodorkovsky was sent to a pretrial detention center and was accused under seven articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Business publications somehow took this arrest as a certain "reference point" by analyzing the failure of this deal arguing that "if Khodorkovsky had not been arrested, then…" as if they forgot that complains towards Yukos had started not in autumn of 2003, as at the moment of the arrest Platon Lebedev, a henchman of Khodorkovsky, was already in a pretrial detention center on "economic" articles. Apart from that, under detention was placed Alexey Pichugin, an employee of the security service of Yukos, who, according to the investigation and the court, in executing the crimes had followed the instructions of one of the “main shareholders” – Leonid Nevzlin.
And Khodorkovsky himself, upon whom initially were imputed the affairs with the shares of the JSC "Apatit" and tax crimes, would have acted differently, had he thought seriously about the deal with "Sibneft". As a minimum, he would have thought about how to close tax issues – his own, as a physical person, and of Yukos, as a juristic person, and for that purpose, for instance, there is a way – "active repentance". As is known, he had not done anything from the mentioned possibilities.
A BLOODY TRASE ON THE REPUTATION
In this sense, very indicative were the tax plans of Yukos. "In Yukos", wrote the newspaper "Izvestiya", they promised to consolidate the accounting of "Sibneft" as its "affiliate". It means that Yukos with the help of the profits of "Sibneft" could considerably increase its tax payments and by this decrease the tensions in its relations with fiscal authorities. "Sibneft" didn't suit such a variant".
“Taking into account Yukos tax arrears – more than 20 billion U.S. dollars – to the state characterized as “fraudulent evasion”, it is quite clear why “Sibneft” insisted on the “reverse deal”. And even with all tax encumbrances pulled by Yukos behind itself, the new oil giant would have coped with the passing of time, but the escaped to Israel fugitive criminal Leonid Nevzlin sentenced to life imprisonment for murders and attempted murders, would have yawned on the reputation as a bloody dent”, notes the website Prigovor.ru.
(See also the previous article “On this day, Yukos dropped the dangerous dead weight in form of Mikhail Brudno». «To the maximum distance Yukos from «Group Menatep». Nevzlin has hypocritically distanced himself from APCO. The website Prigovor.ru reminds its readers what happened on February 2. 2004.
