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YUKOS: The Sequel?
Kommersant reviewer Olga Pleshanova noted a certain lack of clarity in the case of Mikhail Gutseriev's Russneft oil company and its tax debt. The Federal Tax Service is claiming that the sale of that company's stock through a chain of 11 firms was an illegal and immoral scheme that resulted in the sale of the stock at prices hundreds of times below the market rate and the nonpayment of taxes on them, in violation of article 169 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. The transfer of those stock has been blocked by the court.
While the tax claims against the firms are convincing, charges based on article 169 raise questions among jurists. Fortunately, court practice is not yet to declare any tax evasion an antisocial act, with the confiscation of any property obtained in that means, as foreseen by that article.
Informed sources say that the charges were filed as a means of pressuring Gutseriev and that the Kremlin started making deals to determine who would be the next head of his company in March, not long after the 20.6-million rubles' tax claims were made.
So far, the case has made little progress in court, with the judges finding fault with the tax service's suits. Finally, this month, the tax service filed supplemental material, which has not been made public yet, and the trial got underway. If the tax service loses the case based on article 169, it can still file suit for selling the stock at an artificially low price. In that case, experts say, the monetary demands could be significantly higher than the almost $1 billion in question now. The whole world watched as tax claims were used to dispossess the owner of YUKOS. Russneft may be going in the same direction, Pleshanova says.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of June 20, 2007
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