BP Moscow Office Resumes Work After Raid; Documents Sealed

- BP Moscow Office Resumes Work After Raid; Documents Sealed

Monday, September 05, 2011
Dow Jones Newswires
MOSCOW
by William Mauldin

BP's Moscow office resumed work Monday following a raid last week by Russian court officials, a spokesman in Moscow for the U.K. oil giant said.

Documents gathered by the court bailiffs are currently sealed inside the office, and no papers have been removed, said the spokesman, Vladimir Buyanov.

BP said Friday that the search had been halted for 10 days and that it would challenge the operation in court.

Russian bailiffs on Wednesday and Thursday entered the BP office with special police armed with automatic weapons, as part of a search requested in a $3 billion lawsuit by investors in a traded unit of the oil company's Russian joint venture.

BP has called the lawsuit "absurd" and the search "unfounded" and directed at the wrong unit of the company.

The minority investors' attorneys said the search was carried out according to Russian law, regardless of which BP unit was searched.

The minority investors are seeking documents related to BP's Russia joint venture, TNK-BP Ltd., and to a failed Arctic deal between BP and state-controlled oil company Rosneft, as part of a lawsuit brought in Siberia's Tyumen Region Arbitration Court.

The minority investors, who live in Tyumen, have filed suits against BP and two of the U.K. company's executives at TNK-BP, claiming at least $3 billion in lost opportunities as a result of the failed Arctic deal with Rosneft.

The raid suggests BP's difficulties in Russia are likely to continue despite its efforts to put the fiasco of the Rosneft deal behind it, energy analysts said. BP initially disclosed the landmark alliance with Rosneft in January but found a deal blocked by opposition from its billionaire partners in TNK-BP Ltd.

Copyright (c) 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

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BP Briefs on Russia Office Raid

- BP Briefs on Russia Office Raid

Friday, September 02, 2011
BP plc

On Thursday night the bailiff of the Federal Bailiff Service (FSSP) for Moscow passed a resolution to postpone the execution of enforcement procedures against BP Exploration Operating Company Limited (BP EOC) until September 10, 2011. The postponement was introduced in response to a petition filed by BP EOC regarding the necessity to get clarification from the Arbitration Court of Tyumen Region. The required clarifications concern the judicial act which was the basis for the executive actions.

BP EOC believes that the Court Decision which allowed the inspection and copying of documents in the Moscow office of the company contradicts the applicable Russian legislation, contains outrageous requirements and was made in support of an unfounded lawsuit. BP EOC is not a defendant in the legal claim by TNK-BP Holding minority shareholders and is neither a direct nor an indirect shareholder of TNK-BP Holding. The keywords "oil" and "gas", on which the search in documents was authorized to be carried out, allows the seizure of virtually all corporate documentation of BP EOC, including confidential documents.

In addition, the Arbitration Court of Tyumen ordered the bailiffs to allow the representatives of Andrei Prokhorov, a minority shareholder of TNK-BP, to participate in the examination and confiscation of documents and then to turn them over to such representatives instead of the court. BP EOC believes that this process has been a misuse of the Russian Arbitration Procedure Code.

The decision taken by the bailiffs will allow BP EOC time to appeal against the decision of the Arbitration Court of Tyumen region under normal conditions and to require the complete cancellation of any enforcement proceedings under the unfounded lawsuit by Andrei Prokhorov.

At present, all examined documents of BP EOC remain in office in a sealed cabinet. The company expects to resume normal operation of the office on Monday, September 5.

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