An invoice to a chicaner

Andrey Prokhorov, a minority shareholder of TNK-BP Holding, might pay dearly for a dispute with BP. The structures and representatives of the latter claim from the Claimant compensation, which may amount to a total of $2 million. The lawyers are convinced that the BP’s goal is to make Prokhorov disclose the name of the person, who ordered the dispute.

Last summer Prokhorov and several other individuals – TNK-BP Holding minority shareholders all – filed a claim with the Court of Arbitration of the Tiumen Region against the structures of BP and two of its representatives in the Board of Directors of the Russian company – Peter Anthony Charow and Richard Scott Sloane. The amount of the claim was of 16 billion dollars. Because of the respondents’ actions TNK-BP had not been able to participate in a strategic alliance between BP and Rosneft. The Court first sanctioned the seizure of documents from the BP office, but later dismissed the claim.

Now BP is on the offensive. Yesterday one of its structures – BP EOC - filed a claim with the Court of Arbitration of the Tiumen Region demanding that litigation costs in the amount of 22 million roubles de exacted from Prokhorov. This was the information given to “Vedomosti” by advocate Konstantin Lukoyanov, who represents the interests of the British company. The BP subsidiary is planning to increase the amount of claim by filing the claim to compensate for the losses caused by idleness during the summer visit of bailiffs, says Lukoyanov. The amount of claim is preliminarily estimated at approximately 7 million roubles (approx. $240000).

Advocate Andrey Melnikov, who represents Sloane’s interests, says: “The Directors are one step away from laying similar claims to the minority shareholders”. The exact amount is yet to be defined. He informs that it is preliminarily estimated at several hundred thousand dollars.

The goal of the claim is not only to exact compensation, but also to bring to responsibility the real initiators of the claim, says Melnikov. Lukoyanov concurs.

Evgeny Senchenko, trustee in bankruptcy, tells that the cases, when the so-called “men of straw” are forced by counter-claims into admitting their role in the process and disclose the real initiators are frequent. The amount of claim is essential: if it is not too great, the initiators would rather pay “for the silence”.

Arthur Rokhlin, Partner at the Firm, says that it will be impossible to bring the initiators of the process to Russian courts, if the minority shareholders, threatened by counter-claims, disclose their names: only the claimants themselves will bear the burden of filing unfounded claims. However, the Advocate is of the opinion that the initiators will not avoid consequences originating from international courts: BP may claim very serious compensation in London. Arthur Rokhlin believes: “The damage to reputation will be colossal, therefore, if there are persons who ordered the process, it will be less expensive for them to pay for the minority shareholders in Russia”.

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