“His actions defied explanation”. A top manager at distance work. A replacement for Mosamore was found at a dump. The website Prigovor.ru reminds its readers of what happened on December 16, 2005.
On this day 18 years ago, on December 16, 2005, it became known that the Oil Company Yukos got rid of Bruce Misamore, whose resignation on the eve was confirmed by the Board of Directors. He was seen off the premises in due order - with fanfare, with members of the board having noted "a great contribution to the development of the company" as well as his role "in the transformation of Yukos to an open company, reputable in the whole world".
However, the newspaper “Kommersant”, having, obviously, sensed a tricky part of the pompous press release, found out that Bruce Misamore left the company, because “some actions of the finance director defied explanation”. For instance, on December 9, Misamore “at a distant unscheduled shareholder meeting on December 9 (2005) represented by power of attorney the foundation “Veteran Petroleum” (it holds about 10% of Yukos shares) and voted against the reduction of the registered capital of Yukos that many circumstances demanded. By doing so, he, in fact, sabotaged taking a decision that was important for the company. Thereat, nobody could adequately explain his actions. Some said Misamore voted like that “by mistake", the management, allegedly, had not explained the essence and importance of the issue. Others argued Misamore acted following the instruction of "Veteran Petroleum" where they had their own understanding of the question put to vote. Somehow or other, the decision was not taken.
HE DIDN’T WANT TO ACKNOWLEDGE YUKOS TAX CRIMES
Apart from that, it was found out that in summer 2004, Bruce Misamore handed in his resignation. “Mr. Misamore”, reminded the newspaper “Kommersant”, “motivated his decision by his disagreement with letters of some Yukos managers to the government of the Russian Federation in which the company, in connection with tax claims put forward against it, admitted “a series of mistakes of the former management of Yukos in running the company" (See also the article “On this day Yukos counted tax penalties and debts for neckties”).
"In the mentioned letters," the newspaper recalled, "Yukos offered the authorities to voluntarily pay the amount agreed in advance with the state in exchange for refusing to file further tax claims against the company. Mr. Misamor strongly disagreed with such a statement of the issue and was going to leave the company, but the board of directors persuaded him to stay. This time, the members of the board of directors did not persuade Mr. Misamor, the newspaper pointed out, noting that Bruce Misamor this year (2005) actually did not participate in the operational management of the company and spent most of his time in Houston (USA)”
It’s worth noting that in Houston Misamore, in essence, became a home-worker after having launched in the middle of December 2004 a firm “Yukos USA Inc” which was declared very nearly “the Yukos office in exile”. In connection with this, in 2005, Misamore had to answer in court a series of unflattering questions. In particular, he had to admit that “Yukos USA Inc”, trying through the Court in Texas to derail the auction sale of “Yuhganskneftegaz”, at the moment of filing a lawsuit in court, was a shell company, and its accounts were filled "retroactively" which exacted quite a negative toll on the reputation of "the most transparent company in the world". Therefore, the Board of Directors, apparently, simply waited when Mr. Misamore himself would write a petition for resignation.
A REPLACEMENT DIDN’T HOLD LONG. HE WAS FOUND AT THE “DUMP”
“On the same day, on December 16, 2005, it became known that, instead of Bruce Misamore, the finance director of the company became Frank Rieger – first, with the attachment “acting” and then without it. However, as soon as in March 2006, he also left the company. Rieger said he was leaving “on principal considerations”, as Yukos changed a lot. Evidently, Frank Rieger preferred to work with the tax dodgers from the organized group of “the main shareholders”, otherwise he wouldn’t have emerged in Khodorkovsky’s “dumps” which he started to spawn trying to organize “grey schemes” of financing of anti-Russian operations”, notes the website Prigovor.ru.
(See also the previous article “On this day, the Constitutional Court of RF didn’t appreciate the generosity of the ECtHR. 1.9 billion euros – “nobody and nothing”. Yukos used illegal schemes for tax evasion. The website Prigovor.ru reminds its readers of what happened on December 15, 2016.
