A core shareholder in the company that owns about 60% of the shattered oil giant Yukos promised in an interview published on Wednesday to sue Russian authorities for the destruction of what was once the nation’s biggest oil producer.
Leonid Nevzlin, who is wanted by Russian prosecutors in connection with a murder investigation, said in an interview with the Russian Vedomosti business daily from Tel Aviv that he will be responsible for coordinating the Menatep Group’s legal campaign against Russian authorities.
”My new status presupposes that I will fight for the interests of all shareholders of Yukos,” Nevzlin said.
Last week, Yukos’s jailed former CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky said he has transferred the right to manage 59,5% of Menatep Group, which in turn owns about 60% of Yukos, to Nevzlin.
The interview was the first time Nevzlin has commented on the months-long legal clampdown on Yukos and its owners since he bowed out of the limelight last spring.
”We plan to demand reimbursement for damages in all possible international courts in Europe and America,” said Nevzlin, who lives in self-imposed exile in Israel.
Yukos, which once pumped more than a fifth of Russia’s oil, was reduced to a shadow of its former self after the December auction of its biggest production unit, Yuganskneftegaz, against its multibillion-dollar back-tax bills. The mysterious winner of the auction was purchased days later by state-owned Rosneft.
Nevzlin said Yukos could have been worth $50-billion, not counting new acquisitions. The company is today worth about $1,5-billion.
Observers say the company and Khodorkovsky’s woes stemmed from a Kremlin drive to recapture influence in the politically vital oil sector and punish the tycoon’s perceived political ambitions. The Kremlin counters that the legal cases and tax claims are just a clampdown on shady business practices.
While Nevzlin said shareholders will elect a new board of directors to the company, he noted that the current management team, led by American CEO Steven Theede, is doing a good job.
A ruling won in a United States court in Houston, Texas, by Yukos’s managers, which banned companies from participating in the December auction, had been ”a pleasant surprise”, Nevzlin said.
Nevzlin stressed that Yukos is still under pressure from authorities.
”As far as we understand, the tax claims against the company are not closed, so there are all grounds to expect the worst,” he said. — Sapa-AP