The forecast is to blame

Andrey Prokhorov, a minority shareholder of “TNK-BP Holding”, requested the Court of Arbitration of Tiumen Region to lower the claim amount against BP p.l.c. and BP Russian Investments Ltd. by almost one third – from 409 billion to 288 billion roubles during a preliminary court session yesterday, according to the parties’ attorneys. This is the third time the claim amount is adjusted.

The minority shareholders strives to prove that BP, acting through its directors Peter Charow and Richard Sloane, did not inform the Board of TNK-BP of the eventual alliance with Rosneft, and he was thus unable to decide on joining the alliance. In August of 2011, A.Prokhorov estimated the losses incurred by TNK-BP at 87,1 billion roubles. According to Dmitry Chepurenko, Partner of the advocates’ bureau “Liniya Prava”, attorney of the minority shareholder, such was the difference between the fair price of 9,53% of Rosneft shares (such fair price amount is not clear, yesterday the stock was valued at 209,3 billion roubles) and the price, at which, in A.Prokhorov’s opinion, TNK-BP could purchase the shares by joining the alliance. By autumn, the claim amount rose by 67,2 billion roubles. D.Chepurenko stated that such was the amount of profits, which TNK-BP could receive by participating in BP’s international projects. No projects were named nor any calculation methods specified. A month later, 255,8 billion roubles more were added to the claim. Such was the amount, according to the experts, of the profits from participation in the Karskoe sea projects, which TNK-BP lost by not joining the alliance with Rosneft, D.Chepurenko explains. The lawyer only said that the evaluation was done by “one of the leading scientific institutes of the sphere; investments into the exploitation of the deposits, long-term forecasts of the extraction and value of the energy source were taken into account.

Now D.Chepurenko says that those evaluations were reviewed taking into account the forecast of the world economy development, noting that the “composition of the losses remains the same”. The attorney informs that the agreement between Rosneft and ExxonMobil has influenced the adjustment of the claim amount: a large part of the claim moved by A.Prokhorov consists of the lost profits from the participation in the Karskoe sea projects, which was reevaluated in accordance with the conditions of that agreement.

Konstantin Lukoyanov, advocate of BP, believes that TNK-BP was not able to participate in the projects together with Rosneft even theoretically. Therefore, all loss calculations, as the claim itself, are far-fetched and unreal: “We count on that the court will again dismiss the corporate blackmailers’ claim”.

Earlier, the Fedrwl Court of Arbitration of the West Siberian District dismissed two previous rulings on the case (both in favour of BP) and remitted the case for new consideration. The main session on the case is scheduled for July 26.

Arthur Rokhlin, Partner of the Firm, says that the claims of compensating for the lost profits are frequent in Russia, but rarely satisfied, independently from the claim amount: it is extremely difficult to prove the existence of the losses.