Yukos noted the anniversary 150th search

The head of the board of Yukos Stephen Tidi, while in London, told reporters that the search of the Moscow office on Wednesday was an anniversary, 150th in a row.

“It becomes some kind of farce. We have nothing more to take more. They have all the information. Today they search our financial department. They appear on the threshold and want to find something, but we don’t understand why,” Tidi said.

Representatives of law enforcement agencies searched the Yukos office in Moscow and in the office of its main production unit "Yuganskneftegaz" in Siberia in connection with the tax claim of the government against Yukos for $ 18.5 billion.

“This is very strange. Sometimes they behave exclusively in a businesslike way, sometimes they begin to intimidate,” the American says.

Meanwhile, as the British Daily Telegraph notes, Yukos has fewer options, and the chances of maintaining the company are scanty. The company's shareholders will vote in January for or against bankruptcy declaration. If the company recognizes itself bankrupt, then its assets - half of which are now frozen by the state - will go to pay part of the debt. (Transfer of an article on the website inopressa.ru .)

However, Tidi, like other leaders of the disgraced oil company, continues to say that so far it is impossible to talk about bankruptcy. He explained to foreign journalists that if financial failure is announced too early, then criminal charges of deliberate bankruptcy can be made against the company's management.

The company paid only 4 billion out of 18.5 billion dollars of a total tax account for 2000, 2001 and 2002 (this is, respectively, 67, 100 and 105% of the company's total income in each of these years). However, the government has not yet presented an account for 2003. Tidi does not get tired of repeating that if Yukos falls apart, oil exports will suffer, which can lead to an increase in oil prices in the international market. Yukos accounts for 2% of world exports.

"If we eventually find ourselves to the wall when this happens, our suppliers will no longer provide us with a loan and will be all reason to expect a decline in production," he said.

Tidi is convinced that Yukos is persecuted for reasons of not business, but a political nature, due to the anti-Putin activity of his largest shareholder and the former head of the company Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The head of the Yukos said that the company could pay for the tax account if there was confidence that there would be no new shocks. Now Yukos is hardly restrained on a dangerous face.

Tidi adds that the torment of Yukos can serve as a factor holding back Western investors who want to invest in Russia. He says: "I do not think that the situation with Yukos has benefited the image of Russia. Most of the people I spoke, think that the matter here is not at all in taxes."