Alexander Ermolenko, Head of FBK Legal Corporate practice on seizure of documents in Moscow BP office

Alexander Ermolenko, head of FBK Legal corporate practice in his interview to Gazeta.ru commented upon the news that catchpoles are seizing documents in Moscow BP office.

The actions are performed according to the decision of court of Tyumen region. As the newspaper reminded, at the beginning of August minority shareholders of TNK BP Holding submitted to Arbitration Court of Tyumen region a claim against members of the Board of Directors of TNK BP, Peter Cherow and Richard Sloan. Minority shareholders believe that managers are responsible for the fact that TNK BP Holding could not take part in the alliance with Rosneft for exchange of shares and joint exploration of Arctic shelf.

The day before Rosneft announced that they would change the Arctic partner: the company will develop the shelf together with American concern Exxon Mobil. According to the plaintiffs, Cherow and Sloan, as persons occupying managing positions in companies within BP Group “they could not be unaware of negotiations between the company “BP or any other company within BP Group with oil company Rosneft”. Minority shareholders believe that Cherow and Sloan should have reported to TNK-BP Holding about possibility of participating in strategic partnership. Namely because it was not timely done, TNK-BP Holding according to the plaintiffs did not manage to join the alliance. The group of minority shareholders believes that because of the missed opportunity the holding had suffered losses amounting to 87,112bn RUR.

“The losses, criminality of actions and cause-effect relation between actions and losses are to be proved”, said head of FBK Legal corporate practice, Alexander Ermolenko. To retrieve losses, according to him, a responsible person should be found. “Management responds in case of insolvency or losses, however this almost does not work in Russia. Moreover, this implies responsibility before the third parties while shareholders are members of a joint stock company. This is like a claim towards themselves”, Ermolenko concluded.