Word: russianizing
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Whatever the reason for the attack on Khodorkovsky, his supporters say the real issue is the rule of law, which affects all business. They cite what they say are the Kremlin's numerous violations of both Russian law and general business ethics, including intimidating raids on Yukos offices by armed security forces in balaclavas, harassment of the company's attorneys and the selective, retroactive application of new legal principles. If the Russian state can come down so heavy-handedly on one firm, the pro-Yukos camp argues, everyone is at risk. "It would be a very brave person that concluded...
Putin has said he wants to encourage Western investment in Russia and has no intention of destroying Yukos. Russian officials say the back-taxes claim is based on an official audit...
...hard to pay suppliers and staff. But the company has called a shareholder vote for December to decide whether to file for bankruptcy protection; a principal reason it hasn't already done so is that a majority of board members believe it would be impossible to find a Russian court willing to approve the petition. Indeed, the day before Conoco signed the Lukoil deal, the Moscow court where Khodorkovsky is on trial refused to allow a former German Justice Minister serving as an official European human-rights representative to speak with him. The Yukos case "has set the Russian judicial...
...industry executives describe the Yukos crackdown as an isolated event--a Russian oligarch incurred the wrath of the Kremlin because he got too big for his britches--not a concerted attack on the oil sector as a whole. Few top executives will talk about Yukos publicly, and most oil companies won't comment on their Russian investment strategies. But John Browne, BP's chairman, has defended his company's deal. "At present, I would say--and I believe this will continue--that there has been no effect" on BP's Russian venture from Yukos, he said earlier this year. That...
...company can raise its stake in Lukoil--but only to a ceiling of 20%. That's less than the 25% it needs to be able to block strategic company decisions. BP, by contrast, whose contract was signed eight months before Khodorkovsky's arrest, has a 50% share in its Russian joint venture. (The company's Russian minority shareholders are howling because BP uses a complicated transfer-pricing method that allows the parent company, instead of subsidiaries, to book the lion's share of profits.) "That's a deal we won't see repeated," says Jonathan Stern of the Oxford Institute...