Finance Ministry receives no YUKOS' proposals

The Russian Finance Ministry has not received any proposals from YUKOS about handing over stakes of the major shareholders in the company for reimbursement of the Russian Tax Ministry's claims of $7bn in overdue taxes, Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergey Shatalov told journalists. The ministry has not received any YUKOS proposals, he emphasized.

Yesterday former YUKOS CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky proposed to use stakes of the major shareholders in the company to settle the conflict. He was reported to be ready to give a part or the whole of his stake to the firm, which would then either hand the shares directly to the authorities or sell them and use the cash to settle current and future tax claims and thus avert an otherwise imminent bankruptcy.