Anatoly Batashev. Black redistribution of property

Black redistribution of property
Anatoly Batashev

Publication date: April 20, 2001

The effectiveness of a social system is impossible apart from the stable and norm-conforming configuration of its subsystems. Today, at the intersection of politics, economics and law, processes are unfolding during which new contours of the system configuration are taking shape, and the only question is to what extent these new contours will meet the decisive requirement of legality and efficiency.

The change of actual owners of a number of the largest enterprises in Russia is one of the stable trends of recent times, the intensity of which is such that many experts talk about a comprehensive redistribution of property. Unlike the redistribution of privatization times, the latest round of property redistribution was not marked by large-scale legal chaos. And yet, legal procedures were often ignored by those in whose hands the real power and authority were. Events around Transneft, the Kachkanarsky GOK Vanadium, the Vyborg Pulp and Paper Mill, KrAZ, NkAZ, partly Media-Most and the Volgograd Drilling Equipment Plant show that in Russia (as in countries of Asian despotism) those who have power control and property, and not vice versa.

Here, both the regional and federal components of power are equally weighty. Regional - to the extent that the role of the administrations of the relevant territories in many cases became decisive in resolving disputes. Federal - due to the tension that exists in the gap between the public detachment of the central government and the tangibleness of its actual intervention.

As typical examples of today's games around the redistribution of large property, four sensational stories, each in its time, will be considered below. This is the seizure of the Kachkanarsky GOK, the formation of an aluminum superholding, competition in the telecommunications market, as well as the situation around the Volgograd drilling plant. Each of these examples not only clearly shows how fragile the bones of the “rule of law state” are, but also contributes to a deeper understanding of reality. The reality of forces and interests that reproduce themselves at the intersection of “law,” “economics,” and “power.”

It is obvious that the analysis of these four dispositions, in itself, will not affect their dynamics in any way. But nothing prevents him from helping to develop a strategy for resolving major property conflicts, as well as outlining ways to fill a number of very obvious gaps in existing legislation.

Battle for Kachkanar

Events around KGOK resulted in a huge socio-political scandal. The communists were especially zealous. Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznev called on Interior Minister Rushailo to “expel the invaders” from KGOK. On February 17, 2000, the Pravda-KPRF newspaper published an open letter from Zyuganov to Putin, in which, using the example of KGOK, it was pointed out that the redistribution of public property is increasingly resulting in outright criminality, and armed seizures of the enterprise should not be ignored.

Redistribution of property in the aluminum industry

The offensive went in three directions - manipulating electricity tariffs, destroying the raw materials and financial base of competing companies, and lobbying for projects that provide competitive advantages. Basically, this war was of a shadow nature. Its visible side was a massive PR campaign.

An attempt to redistribute the telecommunications sector

If in the two previous examples the authorities formally remained on the sidelines, then in the case of attempts to regulate the telecommunications sector, their intervention was quite active, however, not entirely successful. We are talking about scandals around ORT and NTV and competitions for the frequencies of the first and third channels. So far, the state and the structures under its control have not managed to oust either Berezovsky or Gusinsky from the information market, although both are forced to hide from Russian justice abroad.

Scandal around the Volzhsky Drilling Equipment Plant

Once again, some shareholders chose to resolve internal disputes not within the framework of procedures provided for by law - in court and arbitration - but with the involvement of administrative resources. As we have already seen in the example of the Kachkanarsky GOK, the initiation of criminal cases against individual shareholders becomes an important tool of unfair competition.