Russian state-controlled oil company
OAO Rosneft announced on Tuesday it will take out US$22 billion (euro16.5
billion) in loans to bid for assets of the bankrupt oil company OAO
Yukos.
In a statement, Rosneft said one loan of US$9 billion (euro6.77
billion) has been secured for its subsidiary company RN-Razvitye
to purchase 1 billion Rosneft shares held by Yukos.
The statement did not specify what other Yukos assets would be sought
by Rosneft when the assets go up for auction March 27, but indicated
the company's refining facilities would be of top interest.
"Currently, Rosneft's business mix includes a material imbalance
between upstream and downstream - we produce much more oil than we
have capacity to refine," Rosneft President Sergei Bogdanchikov
said.
Yukos was forced into bankruptcy after being crushed under tens
of billions in back-tax claims issued by the state. Its founder,
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, is serving an eight-year prison sentence after
being convicted of fraud and tax evasion in a politically charged
trial.
The prosecution of Khodorkovsky and the claims against Yukos have
been widely seen as a Kremlin-driven campaign to punish the tycoon
for challenging Putin and to boost state control over the energy
industry.
Rosneft bought Yukos' biggest production subsidiary after a 2004
auction denounced by Kremlin critics as a farce.
Also Tuesday, the Moscow Arbitration Court ordered international
auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers to pay the government US$480,000
after it annulled its auditing contract with Yukos. The company faced
charges of covering up Yukos's tax shelter schemes and drawing up
two different audit reports in 2002-2004, according to RIA-Novosti.
The order came a week after Russian investigators visited the auditor's
Moscow offices as part of what they said was an ongoing probe into
alleged of tax dodging. The Interior Ministry said company executives
were suspected of failing to pay over US$9.3 million (euro7 million)
in taxes.
In a statement posted on its Web site, the company said the claim
was baseless and that it would appeal the order.
"We regret this decision by the court, we believe the claim
has no legal merits and is based on a fundamental misunderstanding
of the role and functions of the auditor," the statement said.
Sources
http://www.forbes.com
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