The Russian-Belarusian company Slavneft cannot figure out who its president is. If the situation is not resolved within the next few days, Slavneft will violate contracts.

Slavneft President Yuri Sukhanov and the company's executive director Oleg Shchegolev came to their workplaces on Tuesday morning, accompanied by the police, and immediately began taking inventory. Sukhanov had to spend the entire previous day at the office door - security officers did not let him in. And Gutseriev was in charge of the Slavneft building. The current leaders of the company confidently assert that all state decisions regarding Slavneft remain in force - the point is that the state, as the main shareholder, supports its current president, Yuri Sukhanov. Obviously, this is exactly what the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs who accompanied Sukhanov and Shchegolev had to prove.

Meanwhile, the former president of Slavneft, Mikhail Gutseriev, is still confident that he is in fact right. Gutseriev’s position: he is acting on the basis of a writ of execution from the Ordzhonikidze District Court of the city of Ufa dated May 30, 2002, which declared illegal the decision of the Slavneft shareholders meeting on May 13, 2002, when they dismissed Gutseriev and approved Sukhanov as head of the company. On Tuesday, the ex-president of Slavneft invited the current president to meet, and it seems that even an agreement on a conversation was reached.

Moreover, according to Gutseriev, he and Sukhanov agreed to manage the company together “ until this issue is resolved at a high government level .” Gutseriev assured that at present the office of the company president remains sealed and this situation will continue for another day or two. Meanwhile, the state, which has a controlling stake in Slavneft, is clearly not eager to deal with the conflicts surrounding the Russian-Belarusian oil and gas company.

A more or less clear reaction appeared only on Tuesday afternoon. The Ministry of Justice appealed to the Supreme Court with a request to analyze the practice of considering complaints against the decision of a meeting of shareholders of private individuals. After all, a minority shareholder filed a lawsuit in the Ufa city court, and as a result of the trial, the company ended up with two presidents.

Senator from Tuva, oligarch Sergei Pugachev, whom many consider almost the main interested party in the conflict between the two presidents of Slavneft (moreover, it is said that Pugachev supports Gutseriev), on Tuesday tried to dissociate himself from the company. Senator's assistant Oleg Grachev said that " Pugachev has nothing to do with the Slavneft company, and is also not a shareholder of the International Industrial Bank ." Pugachev, according to his assistant, sent a letter on Tuesday to the NTV television company, which disseminated this information, with a request to refute it as untrue. Otherwise, he “ reserves the right to apply to the courts to resolve the dispute .”

Observers seem to be confused by everything that is happening. According to the Kommersant newspaper, the situation is developing in the interests of representatives of law enforcement agencies - law enforcement agencies have already seized 200 boxes of documents from the company’s office. In turn, according to the Vremya Novostey newspaper, the presidential administration and government are completely dissatisfied with the actions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs regarding Slavneft.

True, the consequences of this dissatisfaction on the part of the authorities have not yet been observed. But the conflict within the ranks of Slavneft management has already led to the company stopping the shipment of oil for export as of Friday. According to the company's vice-president Dmitry Perevalov, this is because the company cannot make bank payments. And if the situation is not resolved within a few days, then Slavneft will violate contracts.

VISTOPLANK AROUND SLAVNEFT