Russia & CIS Business & Financial Daily, 19 June 2008

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling on the unlawful detention of head of Menatep Platon Lebedev has come into force, his lawyers say.

"The European Court of Human Rights announced that on June 2 five judges of the Grand Chamber decided to decline an inquiry from the Russian Federation government to submit to the Grand Chamber a resolution dated October 25, 2007 on the first complaint of Platon Lebedev recognizing the violation of his rights," Lebedev's lawyer, Yelena Liptser, said on the website of the lawyers of Lebedev and his business partner Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

"Thus the decision of the ECHR on unlawfully keeping Platon Lebedev at a pre-trial detention facility has come into force," the statement says.

On May 31, 2005 a Moscow court sentenced Lebedev and Khodorkovsky to nine years of jail each for tax evasion among other offenses. Later the term was reduced to eight years for both.

At the end of 2006 Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were transferred from their respective prisons to a pre-trial detention facility in Chita where new charges were brought against them. They were charged with laundering 450 billion rubles and $7.5 billion in 1998-2004.

The 18-month limit on keeping Khodorkovsky and Lebedev in custody in Chita expires in August.

BBC, 18 June 2008

The ruling of the European Court [of Human Rights] saying that the head of the international financial organization Menatep, Platon Lebedev, was remanded in custody illegally has come into force, his defending lawyers say.

"The [European] Court of Human Rights reported that on 2 June 2008 five judges of the Grand Chamber refused to uphold the Russian government's appeal to submit the ruling of 25 October 2007 on the first complaint by Platon Lebedev, which confirmed violation of his rights, for consideration by the Grand Chamber," a statement by Lebedev's lawyer Yelena Liptser says. It was published on the website of the press centre of [former Yukos oil company's owner] Mikhail Khodorkovskiy's and Platon Lebedev's lawyers.

"Therefore, the European Court's ruling saying that Platon Lebedev was illegally kept in custody came into force," the statement says.

[In its 1500 gmt news bulletin, Ekho Moskvy radio had Yelena Liptser making the following comment: "The European Court has ruled that a restraining measure was illegally chosen and violated the trial proceeding over Platon Leonidovich Lebedev, and that there were periods when he was illegally kept in custody. However, on the last day of the three-month period when this ruling had to come into force, the Russian government filed an appeal asking [the court] to submit this complaint for consideration by the Grand Chamber. Today I received a letter from the European Court of Human Rights saying that on 2 June 2008 five judges of the Grand Chamber decided to reject the Russian government's appeal. Therefore the ruling came into force on 2 June 2008."

The ruling does not mean, though, that Lebedev will be released from custody. The Russian authorities will have to pay him compensation, Liptser added.]

BBC, 17 June 2008

The Tverskoy Court in Moscow today refused to sustain the claim against the Prosecutor-General's Office of the Russian Federation in defence of the honour, dignity and business reputation of Menatep head [and former co-owner of the Yukos oil company] Platon Lebedev, his lawyer Vladimir Krasnov has told ITAR-TASS.

Legal action was taken in respect of two items in the report on the completion of the investigation into the case of [former Yukos owner Mikhail] Khodorkovskiy and Lebedev, which was posted on the website of the Prosecutor-General's Office in February 2007. In particular, the report said that, in 1994-96, Lebedev and Khodorkovskiy had fraudulently obtained shares in the Apatit company and its products, "of which they have been found guilty and sentenced to lengthy prison terms". According to the lawyer, "the court did not rule that they were guilty of fraudulently obtaining the shares because the case was dropped on account of the statute of limitations. Furthermore, in accordance with the Constitution of the Russian Federation, a person is regarded as guilty only when a court sentence enters into legal force," the lawyer said.

The second assertion that gave rise to legal action concerned the charge that Khodorkovskiy and Lebedev stole a 38-per-cent stake in the VNK company. According to Krasnov, in actual fact, they were charged with appropriating shares in VNK's subsidiaries, and on a smaller scale, namely 36.8 per cent.

For their part, representatives of the Prosecutor-General's Office maintained that all the information posted on the website matched the charges brought against Lebedev and other service documents.

The court found no reasons to sustain the plaintiff's claim. The lawyer intends to appeal against this ruling.

This was already the second lawsuit concerning the posting on the website of the Prosecutor-General's Office. [Passage omitted] The previous one was also rejected by the Tverskoy Court.

In May 2005, Moscow's Meshchanskiy Court found Platon Lebedev and ex-head of the Yukos oil company Mikhail Khodorkovskiy guilty under six articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, including fraud and tax evasion, and sentenced them to nine years' imprisonment. The Moscow City Court later reduced the term to eight years after considering the appeals lodged by their lawyers. In February 2007, the Prosecutor-General's Office brought new charges against them, of laundering R450bn [nearly 20bn dollars at the current rate of exchange] and 7.5bn dollars between 1998 and 2004.

Russia & CIS Business and Financial Newswire, 16 June 2008

Rosneft has sent the Yakutia Arbitration Court a petition to declare Sakhaneftegaz bankrupt, Lyubov Agaltseva, the court's deputy chairperson, told Interfax.

"A ruling on the petition either accepting it for consideration or returning it to the sender will be made on Tuesday in accordance with the procedural timeframe. Rosneft has already submitted a petition asking to declare Sakhaneftegaz bankrupt in June, but the court sent back the company's first petition on June 9," she said.

Rosneft is Sakhaneftegaz's largest creditor. During auctions to sell the assets of Yukos oil company, Rosneft received the right to demand debt on a loan issued to Sakhaneftegaz by Yukos. With interest rates, the debt currently amounts to about 2 billion rubles.

Agaltseva also said that Sakhaneftegaz management sent the Yakutia Arbitration Court a petition in June asking that the company be declared bankrupt, however the court did not accept the request and returned the petition to the sender.

Sakhaneftegaz management represents the interests of the company's main shareholder, diamond producer Alrosa. Rosneft and Alrosa are thus both trying to launch bankruptcy procedures for Sakhaneftegaz via arbitration.

A source in the Yakutia government told Interfax that the regional authorities would like the court to declare Sakhaneftegaz bankrupt based on Alrosa's petition.

Sakhaneftegaz's debts accumulated under Yukos.

In 2007, Rosneft bought up almost all of Yukos's assets, including the right to demand debt. The company's debtors include Yakutia-based Sakhaneftegaz, Lenaneftegaz and Yakutgazprom.

The main shareholders in Sakhaneftegaz are Alrosa with 50.39% and Sakhatransneftegaz with 39.9%.