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Yukos fires new salvo over sale



By Upstream staff 

The Dutch unit of bankrupt Russian oil producer Yukos warned today that Dutch law may not recognise the sale of Yukos' foreign assets, but company receiver Eduard Rebgun shrugged off the claims, saying the sale will go ahead next month as planned.

On 15 August, Yukos receiver Rebgun plans to sell Yukos Finance UK BV, which owns Yukos' 49% stake in Slovak pipeline monopoly Transpetrol and controls over $1.5 billion in cash held by its subsidiary, Yukos International UK BV.

The units are the surviving parts of the former Russian oil empire and the most burdened with international legal claims.

"A bankruptcy treaty between the Netherlands and Russia is absent. Therefore, pursuant to Dutch law you cannot provide legal title to the Yukos Finance UK BV shares to a buyer at all," Yukos Finance UK BV said in a letter obtained by Reuters.

Yukos' former shareholders, who say the firm's bankruptcy was a Kremlin vendetta against its top owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky, had warned that potential buyers of the company's assets would face life-long litigation.

They filed a number of suits with Dutch courts and the European Court of Human Rights claiming the firm's bankruptcy had been illegal. The next hearing by the District Court of Amsterdam is scheduled for 31 October and the letter said no sales could take place before then.

Rebgun said he had not received the letter and the sale would go ahead as planned. He added that the starting price of $300 million for the lot reflected the asset's risks.

"The situation is complex but interesting. It can become either a headache, of a gift (for the buyer)," he added.

Yukos, once Russia's largest oil producer, was destroyed by a $30 billion back tax claim, and Russia has already sold most of the Russian assets. Khodorkovsky, accused of tax evasion, is now serving an eight-year prison term in Siberia.

State-controlled oil producer Rosneft, one of the Yukos' main creditors, bought most of the Russian assets to become the country's largest oil producer and refiner.

Analysts expect Rosneft and gas monopoly Gazprom to be the main contenders for Yukos' assets abroad.


Tuesday, 31 July, 2007, 13:40 GMT  | last updated: Tuesday, 31 July, 2007, 13:40 GMT

Receiver: Eduard Rebgun
 

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