Russia

A Russian judge has convicted Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the jailed Yukos oil tycoon, and his former business partner, Platon Lebedev, of embezzlement and money laundering in a politically-charged trial that could keep the Kremlin foes in jail for six more years, the Financial Times reported today. Khodorkovsky’s lead defense lawyer immediately said his defense team would appeal, decrying the decision as prefabricated and claiming pressure had clearly been applied on the judge.

A Moscow court Tuesday declared the bankruptcy of a leading commercial bank that is run by a man whom the Russian media once identified as being "the cashier to the Kremlin," Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported on an Agence France-Presse story. The bankruptcy of International Industrial Bank, or Mezhprombank, controlled by Russian tycoon Sergei Pugachev, came less than two months after its operating license was suspended by the Russian Central Bank.

The Russian central bank on Tuesday said it was canceling the license of a leading commercial bank for the first time since the financial crisis broke in 2008, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported on an Agence France-Presse story. The International Industrial Bank, controlled by Russian tycoon Sergei Pugachev, was losing its license for violating a string of regulations, the Russian Central Bank said in a statement on its website. The IIB had failed to report accurate data on its accounts and had been unable to satisfy its obligations towards creditors, the bank said.

Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich may take legal action against the Government over its decision to make subordinated bondholders in Irish Nationwide (INBS) pay part of the bill for dealing with the building society’s huge property losses, The Irish Times reported. Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan said that he expected bondholders in INBS and nationalised lender Anglo Irish Bank to make “a significant contribution” towards meeting the cost of a bill of up to €40 billion for cleaning up their years of reckless lending.

Two decades after embarking on perhaps the most dramatic – and chaotic – privatisation drive in history, Russia is planning to sell stakes in major state companies to help balance its budget and restructure its economy, reversing a recent policy of boosting Kremlin control over big business, The Irish Times reported.

Sea Launch Co LLC, a provider of commercial satellite launches, received court approval for its reorganization and will emerge from bankruptcy under Russian ownership, according to court documents filed on Friday, Reuters reported. Sea Launch will exit bankruptcy with a $200-million line of credit and $155 million in new equity investment by Energia Overseas, a Russian company. Energia will end up with 95 percent of the company.

Russian state-owned bank Sberbank is seeking a seat on the board of failed Kazakh bank BTA, the head of Kazakhstan's national welfare fund, Kairat Kelimbetov, said on Friday. "The talks are only with Sberbank," Kelimbetov, who also has a seat on Sberbank's supervisory board, told Reuters. "We are formulating a plan for the next 2-3 years." The welfare fund owns BTA. Sberbank has been in talks to take over the bankrupt Kazakh lender, one of the largest in the oil rich central Asian state. If it takes a board seat it would likely signal the takeover is ready to proceed.

TNK-BP Ltd., BP PLC's Russian venture, hopes a recent bankruptcy filing at a Siberian gas venture will speed up the government's takeover of the project, allowing TNK-BP to recover at least some of the roughly $900 million it invested there, interim Chief Executive Mikhail Fridman said Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported. Under pressure from regulators, TNK-BP agreed to sell its controlling stake in the huge Kovykta field to state gas giant OAO Gazprom back in 2007. But Gazprom never closed the deal and executives say publicly the company doesn't need Kovykta's huge reserves.

TNK-BP, a joint venture between Britain's BP and a group of Russian billionaires, said on Thursday that its unit which holds the license to the vast Kovykta gas field had filed for bankruptcy, Agence France-Presse reported. TNK-BP said the RUSIA Petroleum unit is unable to pay off debts to its parent company. "The current financial situation precludes RUSIA Petroleum from timely repayment of its loans to TNK-BP Group," the company said in a statement. The loans were made to the subsidiary to finance the development of the vast Kovykta gas field, it said.

Sea Launch's plans to emerge from bankruptcy under majority Russian ownership are still subject to court and regulatory approval, but company leaders say they expect to resume commercial missions early next year, Spaceflight Now reported. The besieged launch firm filed a plan of reorganization in a Delaware bankruptcy court this week, kicking off several months of behind-the-scenes negotiations between the Sea Launch's new owners and unsecured creditors.