Translated material
Kudrin was summoned to court
American minority shareholders of YUKOS came to life after three years of silence
The Yukos case continues to bring surprises. Last Friday, such a surprise awaited Alexei Kudrin in Washington, where the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance arrived to participate in the “Spring Meetings” of the IMF and the World Bank. Mr. Kudrin was invited to speak in front of two hundred reputable experts, officials and businessmen at one of the leading American research centers - the Peterson Institute. A black limousine drove the minister to the entrance to the building, where the organizers of the event were waiting for him. And while Mr. Kudrin was hugging the famous economist Anders Åslund with one hand, an unknown gray-haired gentleman in a dark suit, turquoise tie and sunglasses put an envelope in his free hand. The minister mechanically took the envelope and, without attaching much importance to it, gave it to one of his assistants, and he himself went to speak.Mr. Kudrin told the audience how much the Russian economy depends on foreign markets, and therefore it is important, he explained, that the leading Western countries are aware of their responsibility for their policies to other states. The minister spoke about the depth of the GDP decline in Russia, about how production and investment fell. He said that the plan to maintain the budget deficit at the level of 7.5% of GDP this year and 5 and 3% of GDP in 2010-2011 is a “tense task”, but in general “we are counting on the forces that will be necessary withstand a long siege." He spoke about new prospects for Russian-American relations and encouraging meetings at the State Department and the office of the US Trade Representative.
An obviously good mood, a convincing and rather frank speech did not escape the attention of the audience, among which were such significant figures for Russia as the former head of the World Bank James Wolfensohn and the former curator of Russia at the IMF John Odling-Smee, investor George Soros, ex-US Ambassador in Russia, Alexander Vershbow, many current and former senior officials of the State Department, the IMF and the World Bank. Well-known political scientist Andrew Kuchins told Mr. Kudrin that he clearly does not look like a person under the constant stress of fighting the economic crisis. Kudrin laughed it off.
And a few minutes later he was no longer in the mood for jokes - it turned out that the stranger at the entrance handed him nothing more than a subpoena in a lawsuit filed by former minority shareholders of the former oil company YUKOS.
The Russian delegation at first denied the information that appeared about the delivery of the summons, but then they nevertheless admitted this fact. As Mr. Kudrin’s press secretary, Pavel Kuznetsov, told reporters, his boss “was slipped some papers by an unknown person, the contents of which the minister had no idea.” “It subsequently turned out that this was a notice issued by the US Federal Court for the District of Columbia to testify in the criminal case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, which is now being considered in a Russian court,” Mr. Kuznetsov said, adding that the notice was issued by Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s lawyers “in an extremely short period of time in secrecy mode and bears the stamp “The document is registered confidentially.” Lawyers of the American firm Baker Botts, which has been doing business in Moscow since 1993, according to Mr. Kuznetsov, “believe that the actions of Khodorkovsky’s lawyers are unlawful, and the decision to call Alexei Kudrin to testify will be canceled by the American court.”
The prospect of any prosecution of Mr. Kudrin does indeed look slim, although it cannot be denied that the plaintiffs have already caused a lot of inconvenience to Russian officials. The history of this persecution begins in October 2005, when 12 individuals filed a lawsuit in a Washington court against the Russian Federation, Gazprom, Gazprom Neft, Rosneft, Rosneftegaz, Baikalfinance Group, as well as personally against ministers Viktor Khristenko and Alexey Kudrin, the heads of Gazprom Alexey Miller and Rosneft Sergei Bogdanchikov and officials representing the state on the boards of directors of Gazprom and Rosneft (one of these officials, the former head of the board of directors of Gazprom Dmitry Medvedev, is now , as is known, the President of Russia). This entire list of defendants was charged with complicity in the nationalization of Yukos, which caused damage to the plaintiffs in the amount of $3 million.
Viktor Khristenko was the first to suffer. On October 23, 2005, the minister, together with a group of officials and businessmen (including Mr. Bogdanchikov), was received by US President George W. Bush. After this meeting, the Russian delegates went to a reception at the fashionable Willard Intercontinental Hotel in Washington, at the entrance to which a stranger approached Mr. Khristenko and handed him a certain folder. The minister, already warned about possible troubles, did not take the folder, but the stranger literally shoved it under Mr. Khristenko’s arm. The folder nevertheless fell to the floor, but this did not stop the plaintiffs' lawyers from declaring that the subpoena was served on the Russian minister.
After this incident, visits by Russian officials to Washington took place under conditions of heightened vigilance. Visitors were specially instructed on the topic of contacts with strangers, and embassy staff constantly accompanied guests from Moscow to avoid trouble.
But the plaintiffs were quicker. Already in January 2006, when Alexei Kudrin met with then US Treasury Secretary John Snow, a bailiff overtook him literally on the steps of the Treasury. Kudrin then drove into the protected territory of the financial department in a car, and, obviously, already felt protected. But even then, apparently, he mechanically picked up the paper submitted by someone, although the Russian Ministry of Finance officially denied the service of the summons.
Be that as it may, no unpleasant incidents have occurred since then, and Mr. Kudrin calmly participated in the spring session of the IMF and World Bank in April 2006, and since then has been in Washington at least five times. Initially, the case with the claim of YUKOS minority shareholders in the Washington court looked like the political aspect in it prevailed over the economic or legal one, and the plaintiffs seemed to have chosen as an example the tactics of the notorious Noga company. It is difficult to understand what has revived their activity now. But what is noteworthy is the fact that George Soros, a major investor and major philanthropist who had serious problems in Russia in both of his guises, took part in the meeting with Alexei Kudrin at the Peterson Institute. Having taken the floor, contrary to his custom, he did not criticize Moscow’s policies, but expressed satisfaction with the encouraging signals from the Russian capital. He mentioned a series of meetings between President Dmitry Medvedev and representatives of civil society, the development of the Svetlana Bakhmina case and expressed hope that the new trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky will be fair. Alexey Kudrin left these remarks by Soros without comment.