Moscow Court Declares Former NTV Board's Actions Illegal

Moscow's Cheremushki inter-district court ruled today that the actions of former NTV general director Yevgeny Kiselev and those of the previous NTV board as regards the appointment of the NTV board April 2, 2001, were illegal (NTV is a private Russian television company -- Ed.) The court thus upheld the complaint of Vyacheslav Sheremet, who serves as deputy Gazprom board chairman and who had filed a lawsuit against Kiselev. According to Sheremet, Kiselev had no right to sign the relevant document stipulating the date of the meeting; this constitutes the prerogative of the NTV board chairman, namely, media tycoon Vladimir Gusinsky, the plaintiff noted. The court did agree with Sheremet's arguments. Lawyer Dmitry Matveev, who represented Sheremet's interests in court, believes that the Cheremushki court's ruling will nullify all of the NTV board's decisions made April 2; the same is true of its decision to endorse the articles of association of the NTV mass-media body. Those articles of association state expressly that the NTV general director can only be re-elected by the company's personnel. Yevgeny Kiselev, as well as some former NTV journalists, keep referring to precisely this clause in their lawsuit that was submitted to Moscow's Krasnaya Presnya district court, Dmitry Matveev explained. The former NTV administration, which is headed by Yevgeny Kiselev, wants the decisions of the April 3 shareholder meeting to be declared null and void. The new NTV board was re-elected April 3, 2001, what with Boris Jordan becoming NTV general director; Vladimir Kulistikov was appointed to the post of editor-in-chief.