Moscow Court Rules in Favour of Returning Bashneft Shares to State
The Moscow Arbitration court ruled on Thursday that shares in Bashneft owned by Russian conglomerate Sistema should be returned to the state after an “improper privatisation”.
A Reuters correspondent at the court said the judge had ruled in favour of the General Prosecutor’s office, which argued that oil producer Bashneft was unlawfully privatised in the early 2000s and subsequently sold to Sistema in 2009.
Sistema’s main owner and chairman Vladimir Yevtushenkov was placed under house arrest in September for alleged involvement in money laundering related to the Bashneft sale. (Reporting by Denis Pinchuk; writing by Vladimir Soldatkin, editing by Elizabeth Piper)
