Russia’s embattled Yukos oil giant was satisfied on Friday at a United States Bankruptcy Court ruling that slapped a 10-day halt to a planned sale of Yukos’s core asset, its main oil-pumping division Yuganskneftegaz, Yukos’s spokesperson said.
”We have always said that Yuganskneftegaz’s sale is illegal both by Russian and international law, so we are satisfied that an authoritative international court confirmed this,” Alexander Shadrin said in comments aired by the Moscow Echo radio station.
Russian federal property fund’s officials said the sale will go on as planned, even though US bankruptcy court Judge Letitia Clark ordered a halt to the sale late on Thursday.
”We are a specialised state agency and act according to Russian law,” Alexander Komarov said, adding that the sale will go ahead on Sunday ”as planned”.
”We are ruled by those decisions made to this day by Russian structures,” he added.
In her order, Clark specifically excluded Moscow from the list of entities barred from participating in the sale, citing the sovereign immunity of foreign governments in US courts.
But her order bars Gazpromneft — a subsidiary of Russian gas monopoly Gazprom that was to bid for Yuganskneftegaz — from taking part in the auction.
It also stops the participation of France’s BNP Paribas, US financial giant JP Morgan and Germany’s Deutsche Bank AG, which were among Western financial institutions that were to finance Gazprom’s bid.
Yukos’s shareholders threatened to sue the Western banks lending money to Gazprom.
Yukos filed on Tuesday for bankruptcy in the US because it claims it is a victim of a Kremlin vendetta and cannot get a fair deal from the Russian justice system.
Russia’s largest oil company contends that the Kremlin has tried to put it out of business by slapping it with fraudulent tax bills, totalling $27,5-billion.
Russian officials have said only a Russian court can halt the sale. — Sapa-AFP