Bailiffs raided BP’s Moscow office on Wednesday after a claim from TNK-BP’s minority shareholder, Andrei Prokhorov, who cited a $2.7-billion economic loss of the failed Rosneft-BP swap deal, BP spokesman Vladimir Buyanov in Moscow said.
In January, Russian state-controlled oil company Rosneft and Britain’s BP agreed on a $16-billion share swap and Arctic shelf development deal. This was later blocked by a court injunction following legal action by the AAR consortium, which represents BP’s partners in the TNK-BP Russian joint venture.
According to Prokhorov’s claim, the failed deal infringed the interests of TNK-BP’s shareholders.
Buyanov said the raid was carried out on the orders of a Siberian Tyumen region arbitration court that requested TNK-BP’s documents, which “determine the professional duties and code of conduct of the holding’s board of directors.”
The court also demanded documents containing information on the citizenships of the board members and their professional activity, BP’s spokesman said.