Yesterday, Gazprom published a regulation on information disclosure. It granted the right to publicly speak to 21 managers – the Chairman of the Management Board Alexey Miller, his deputies, members of the Management Board, as well as the press secretary of the Chairman of the Management Board and the head of the information policy department. They can speak on all issues of the monopoly’s activities and give the floor to other employees of the company. The list of Gazprom speakers has expanded significantly, explains Miller’s press secretary Sergey Kupriyanov. Until now, only the head of the information policy department and his deputy had the right to speak. But essentially nothing has changed, because all top managers have already spoken publicly, the press secretary adds.

In other state-owned companies, the list of speakers is shorter. According to the regulations on the information policy of RAO UES of Russia, only three people have the “exclusive right to speak in public” – the chairman of the board, his first deputy, and the authorized representative for media relations. They can give the floor on behalf of RAO to other employees, and as a result, the number of speakers in the company is significantly larger, explains Andrey Trapeznikov, a member of the board of RAO. It does not intend to follow the example of Gazprom and Transneft. According to Vice President Sergey Grigoriev, only the president and the authorized vice president have the right to speak on behalf of the company. In large private companies, there are also few official speakers. “The usual practice for large publicly traded companies is to make 4-6 people official speakers, and we adhere to it,” notes Gennady Krasovsky, head of the investor relations department at LUKOIL.

A manager of one of the state companies believes that “such an information policy of the gas monopoly will lead to chaos.” The word of a Gazprom manager can cost a lot. For example, in May 2002, Miller said in an interview with Vedomosti that the monopoly had regained about 5% of its shares that belonged to Stroytransgaz. That day, the monopoly’s shares soared by 5%, increasing its capitalization by more than $1 billion. However, the opposite has also happened. For example, the head of Gazprom’s strategic development department, Vlada Rusakova, made it clear at the beginning of June last year that the gas company wanted to participate in the division of YUKOS assets. Although there was no talk of selling off assets at that time. On the day of Rusakova’s statement, Gazprom shares fell by 3.59%. However, the words of deputies and officials have sometimes cost Gazprom more. When it became known about the request of Yuri Savelyev, deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Industry, to the Prosecutor General's Office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB about the legality of owning Gazprom shares through gray schemes, the monopoly's shares fell by almost 13%.

"You can't protect yourself from such cases with bans," the monopoly employee is sure. In addition, along with the right to public speeches, the new regulation has limited Gazprom managers in transactions with its shares. Now insiders are required to report all transactions with securities to Gazprom within a week from the moment they are made.

Officials supported the monopoly's openness. The main thing is that the company's information policy is regulated, says Stanislav Naumov, a representative of the Ministry of Industry and Energy. He believes that the monopoly is thus preparing for the liberalization of the stock market and that transparency will increase its capitalization. Gazprom has made a big step forward, agrees Troika Dialog analyst Elena Krasnitskaya. But investors would like to receive more information from the monopoly, for example, the procedure for approving transactions by the Gazprom board of directors, she concludes.

Freedom of speech in Gazprom