BP is to be dragged into a $3-billion legal claim brought by a Canadian-based group against the oil major’s new Russian partners over allegations of tax fraud and ”racketeering”.
The move — underlining the dangers of dealing with Russia — came as environmental campaigners condemned BP’s $6,75-billion deal with Russia’s Alfa Group for potentially compromising BP’s ”green” credentials and ethical business stance.
New York lawyers acting for NoreX Petroleum say they will subpoena the British oil major ”within a week” to preserve crucial evidence on Alfa’s behaviour in the hands of the British oil major.
Bruce Marks, an American lawyer acting for NoreX, said he was ”shocked” that the BP chief executive Lord Browne had announced plans on Tuesday to team up 50-50 with Alfa and its TNK oil group in the ground-breaking deal.
BP had filed its own legal dispute in New York against Alfa and others at the end of the 1990s over allegations that the Russians had seized assets belonging to Sidanco, in which the UK energy group had a 10% and later a 25% holding.
The row reached the highest levels with prime minister Tony Blair wading in on BP’s behalf.
Yesterday Marks said: ”I intend to file a motion with the US district court of New York to serve a subpoena on BP within a week to preserve the evidence they hold on TNK. I am shocked that a company like BP would do business with TNK given what they know about that company,” he added. Lawyers for Alfa declined to comment, as did BP, but TNK said the legal case against its main shareholders in New York was being taken seriously while its substance was ”baloney”
”They have already lost almost 20 cases and appeals in Russian courts,” said a spokesman.
NoreX claims in the introduction of its case that it is seeking damages ”as a result of massive racketeering in the 1990s operated and directed by American citizens, residents and companies, including … the Alfa Group to take over a substantial portion of the Russian oil industry through their control and use of the Tyumen Oil Company and its subsidiaries and affiliates”.
Greenpeace said Russian oil companies had an ”appalling” record on spills and leaks pointing out that TNK, through its subsidiary Crown Resources, was the charterer of the ill-fated tanker Prestige which caused massive pollution when it sank off Spain last year.
”BP is going to have its work cut out convincing people that the last 10 years of promises about being an ethical com pany were not just greenwash,” said a representative for the campaigning organisation.
And investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Benson yesterday downgraded BP from ”hold” to ”reduce” saying the Russian deal could seriously damage its green image. BP said it noted this but believed its presence in Russia would bring changes. – Guardian Unlimited Â