subsoil use

Aldanzoloto, which is developing one of the largest gold deposits in Yakutia - the Kuranakh ore field, has again found itself at the center of a scandal. As Kommersant learned, one of its shareholders recently filed a lawsuit against the Ministry of Natural Resources. He demands the cancellation of the ministry’s decision to re-register all ten licenses owned by Aldanzoloto for its subsidiary.
The largest shareholders of OJSC Aldanzoloto, created in 1995, are the Yakut State Unitary Enterprise Komdragmetall - 31%, IG Russian Funds - 25%, Kuranakh Zoloto LLC - 12.7% and the administration of the Aldan ulus - 10%. Until recently, Aldanzoloto OJSC owned ten licenses for the development of deposits in the Kuranakh ore field. However, at the end of last year, all of them were re-registered as a wholly owned subsidiary of this OJSC - GC Aldanzoloto LLC.
As Kommersant learned, on Tuesday a certain Moscow ZAO Izida-M filed a lawsuit against the Ministry of Natural Resources with the Moscow Arbitration Court. The minority shareholder of Aldanzoloto OJSC demands that the ministry's decision to re-register the licenses previously owned by this OJSC for the Aldanzoloto Group of Companies is invalidated. Yesterday this information was confirmed to Kommersant by the Ministry of Natural Resources, as well as by the lawyer representing the interests of the plaintiff.
“We know about the lawsuit filed against the ministry, but it has not officially reached us yet. We have just received an appeal from Izida-M CJSC about its intention to sue,” Kommersant said yesterday. O. Head of the Licensing Department of the Ministry of Natural Resources Sergei Nikitin. In his opinion, there are no grounds for prosecution of the Ministry of Natural Resources in this case. “All procedures were carried out in accordance with the legislation in force at that time,” he claims.
However, the Isis-M lawyer does not agree with him. “It was the Ministry of Natural Resources that issued the order on the basis of which the licenses were reissued. In our opinion, we are talking about a non-normative act of a government body. During the court hearing, the procedure for reissuing licenses, including compliance with the licensing requirements established by law, will be examined,” says a representative of the Interregional Collegium lawyers helping entrepreneurs and citizens Vladimir Fedorov.
It is curious that ZAO Izida-M appears for the first time among the shareholders of the Yakut mining company. Meanwhile, according to Mr. Fedorov, this company owns 12% of the shares of Aldanzoloto OJSC. He refused to tell Kommersant when and from whom exactly Izida-M acquired this stake. However, according to Kommersant's information, this company acts in the interests of the Moscow investment company Russian Funds, which four months ago announced the consolidation of a 25% stake in Aldanzoloto (see Kommersant dated December 18, 2003). Apparently, CJSC Izida-M became one of the companies for which Russian Funds legally registered part of the shares of Aldanzoloto purchased on the market.
The shareholders of Izida-M CJSC, created in March 2003, were Agrokomplektproekt LLC, Tekhpromremont LLC, Reaktivsintez LLC, Expospetsmash LLC and Russtrade LLC.
Yesterday, this version of Kommersant was actually confirmed by Russian Funds themselves, admitting that Izida-M CJSC is an “affiliated company.” They declined to comment in more detail here. However, it is worth noting that this is not the first time that Russian Funds are trying to challenge the transfer of licenses for the development of Kuranakh to Aldanzoloto Group of Companies. At the end of March, this company tried to involve the President of Yakutia, Vyacheslav Shtyrov, in resolving the conflict (see Kommersant on March 26). And three weeks later she threatened to sue the Irish Celtic Resources Holdings, the Western partner of IG ALROSA, which actually controls the Aldanzoloto Group of Companies (see Kommersant on April 7).
Kommersant will monitor developments.
ELENA Kommersant-Kiseleva

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 73 dated April 22, 2004, p. 16

Authors:

Elena Kiseleva

Ministry of Natural Resources will be involved for licenses