"To distance Yukos from Group MENATEP as much as possible." Nevzlin pretended to disown "APCO". Website prigovor.ru reminds of what happened on February 2, 2004
On this day, on February 2, 2004, it became known about the plans of the Board of Directors of the Oil Company Yukos - to the maximum distance itself from dubious personalities embodied in the "main shareholders" of the company mired in criminal cases. Everything was explained by certain intentions of "saving the company", to be more precise, with the wish to water down «Yukos sins" in the merger deal with the firm "Sibneft". But something went wrong with the deal. So, the show with distancing turned out to be more similar to performances.
"Governed by the recommendation of the Board of Directors of the Oil Company Yukos about the unacceptability of interference of any shareholders in the operative management of the company, the decision has been taken to remove Mikhail Brudno from the position of the president of the company "Yukos-Moskva", excluding him also from the composition of the board.
The company, naturally, thanked Brudno for “his contribution to the development of the company”, but, as noted Semen Kukes, the president of the Board of the Oil Company Yukos, “the decision to relieve Mikhail Brudno from his duties, has been determined, first of all, by our striving to unfailingly follow the international standards of corporative management guaranteeing, in the interests of all shareholders, a complete independence of the operative management of the Oil Company Yukos”.
“DISTANCE YUKOS TO THE MAXIMUM FROM THE GROUP MENATEP”
As wrote the newspaper "Vedomosty" in the article entitled "In Order to Survive", "the Board of Directors decided to distance the company to the maximum from the main shareholder - from the "Group Menatep" that has serious problems with the state. All shareholders of the "Group Menatep" are accused by the Office of the Prosecutor General of criminal offenses of economic character. Vassily Shakhnovsky is waiting for the decision of the court, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev have been learning the results of the investigation, Leonid Nevzlin, Vladimir Dubov, and Mikhail Brudno have been put on a wanted list. Thereat, Nevzlin continues to deal with politics supporting Irina Khakamada in the elections", pointed out the newspaper.
"The Board of the Directors assumes that to conserve the company, one must limit the participation of employees and money of Yukos in political, as well as other activities of the shareholders", confirmed, talking to the newspaper "Vedomosty", Yury Beilin, vice president of the Board of Yukos. He promised that in this direction corresponding steps would be undertaken.
NEVZLIN HYPOCRITICALLY DISAVOWED APCO
The recommendation on the necessity to part with Brudno was not the only one by any means. On tap was to "deny other shareholders access to all resources of the company". "In particular", the newspaper "Vedomosky" pointed out, "the Washington PR company APCO will keep the contract with Yukos only if it ceases to work on Nevzlin's projects, and in-house lawyers of Yukos stop dealing with the juristic defense of the company shareholders".
Nevzlin was not original when the media outlet asked him about the lobbying firm APCO. "I haven't ordered any projects of APCO, and I didn't supervise its contract with the Group Menatep", said Nevzlin to the credulous newspaper "Vedomosty".
Naturally, Nevzlin didn't order anything by himself - all lobbyist activities, all propaganda was packaged in the name of Yukos or "Menatep". The visits of Khodorkovsky to the United States in 2001, paid by the Oil Company Yukos, with fourchettes "and analytical discussions», had traces of APCO on press releases - telephone numbers and e-mails for contacts.
Orders for lobbying in mentioned America in 2004 sounded simple and without whimsy: "APCO has been consulting the holding company "Menatep", the main shareholder of Yukos".
Apart from that, from 2003 on, to lobbying in the interests of “Menatep” had had something to do not only APCO, but also “Covington & Burning LLP” and “Greenberg & Traurig”, fashionable lawyers of which turned out to be accomplices in the Nevzlin’s performance in the autumn of 2003.
DISQUISED IN TRASTS
Seeing from the outside, the intentions of Yukos to draw a certain dividing line, nevertheless, turned out to be real. As the newspaper "Kommersant" observed, "Yukos has completed the cleaning of its governing bodies from "dangerous" shareholders. Characteristically, they are no longer either in the management, or in the board of directors, or the leadership of the affiliate entities, although experts already at that time pointed out that "Yukos is sill directed by his founders and shareholders".
And a bit later, after the cleaning in February of the same 2004, in order to show less of the names of criminals from among the "main shareholders", there were already no physical persons - everything was quickly merged in eight trusts with no mention of the beneficiaries. And all stealthy activities of the fugitive swindlers continued with the full support of the company's Board of Directors.
"From 2005 the requests for anti-Russian lobbying had been made on behalf of Group Menatep Limited as well as offshore "dumps" created against orders of criminal elements. For instance, the lobbyists of "APCO Worldwide", in fact, directly acted in the interests of the company "Corbiere Trust" behind which blazed the transparent "as lenses of the glasses" image of the "robber baron" Khodorkovsky. And such situation pointed at one thing - all the declared steps of the Yukos management, directed at "distancing from "Group Menatep", was mostly a performance and not intentions to really stabilize the situation around the embezzling and "the most transparent" oil company", notes the website Prigovor.ru.
(See also the previous article “On this day, an “affiliate” of Yukos admitted guilt and was included in the amnesty”. The scheme of fictitious rent. “The transfer was carried out only on paper - in fact, the Kuibyshevsky oil refinery continued to produce gasoline.
