Shakhnovsky will not return into Yukos management

Vasily Shakhnovsky, who was let out last week upon the decision of the Meshchansky court of Moscow, will not come back into the management of the Yukos oil company. Chairman of the Yukos Board of Directors Semen Kukes said this answering a RIA Novosti question at the press conference in the International Relations Council in New York.

"We do not want major shareholders to be present in the management", Kukes said. "It is our stand of principle".

"A decision on resignation of Mikhail Brudno - the last shareholder to be also a manager - from the post of director of the Yukos PM company which answers for the holding's processing and sales was taken last week", the head of the Board of Directors said.

Kukes stressed that "the shareholders must not influence the operational control of the company." He expressed hope that the situation around Yukos would be fully settled in a few months.

"We are now holding a dialogue with state bodies on the problem of the debt and optimization of taxation. They designated their claims, while we are voicing our arguments. It is important that this dialogue is going on", Kukes said.

On February 5 the Meshchansky court of Moscow sentenced former head of the Yukos-Moscow company Vasily Shakhnovsky to one year of deprivation of liberty and rid him of the punishment in connection with "a change of the situation." The court adjudged Shakhnovsky guilty of tax and duties evasion to a sum total of more than 28.5 million roubles.