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YUKOS Bankruptcy off the Agenda
// Creditors meeting will address that question on July 25
Not one of the points on the agenda was discussed at the first YUKOS creditors meeting yesterday before adjourning until July 25. Officially, the delay was caused by claims made by tax service, which has 52 percent of the votes among YUKOS creditors, against interim receiver Eduard Rebgun. Observers say that those claims are only a formality to remove Rebgun from the bankruptcy process and that the company's fate has already been decided. Bankruptcy proceedings will be initiated, but more time is needed to reach an agreement with the other main claimants to YUKOS assets, Rosneft and Gazprom, on the bankruptcy administrator.
Twenty-four of the 30 creditors on the register, representing 99 percent of the votes, were present at the meeting. They were to hear Rebgun's report and examine ten questions concerning the next procedure for bankruptcy, self-regulating organization by a court-appointed administrator or appointment of an administrator. YUKOS president Steven Theede, who has announced that he will resign on August 1, did not participate in the video conference from the office of YUKOS' lawyers in London. Nor was the report on financial recovery presented. Instead, Theede's lawyer read a statement in which Theede called the report of the interim receiver “unreliable.” Theede was dissatisfied with Rebgun's estimate of YUKOS assets at 450 billion rubles, claiming that even a conservative estimate cannot be lower than $30 billion. Stockholders' representative Tim Osborn made a similar statement after Rebgun gave him permission to speak.
Rebgun's report was not heard at the meeting, however. Federal Tax Service representatives unexpectedly declared an adjournment to deal with the “shortcomings in the report of the temporary receiver,” saying that he had failed to estimate “the possibility of loss-free action,” as required by the government. An adviser to Rebgun stated that that information is present in the report, but agreed to reformat it. “The claims against the report are purely formal,” Rebgun commented. “I don't understand yet why they were made. It will become clear on July 25.”
The law on bankruptcy allows the sale of a debtor's property under an outside manager or in bankruptcy proceedings. However, an outside manager may present a plan for the direct sale of the company's assets without open trading, which cannot happen under bankruptcy. Experts say that bankruptcy proceedings would be more beneficial to Gazprom and Rosneft as potential purchasers of YUKOS assets since those deals cannot be disputed in the future. The tax service would also prefer bankruptcy proceedings because it would be able to make its monetary claims faster in that case.
The next step is to name a receiver. Under Ministry of Economic Development and Trade rules, the tax service cannot intervene in that choice without grounds. The claims against Rebgun may represent those grounds, opening the way for it to place the person of its choice (with court approval) in control.
Olga Pleshanova
All the Article in Russian as of July 21, 2006
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