USA Inquires for Political Aspects of the Yukos Scandal

Prosecutor's Office started revision of the oil company at the instance of Duma deputy Mikhail Bugera
The US Embassy in Moscow asked Russian authorities for details of arrest of Platon Lebedev, one of Yukos shareholders, the Wall Street Journal reports with reference to an American diplomat who requested anonymity.

The Embassy of the USA wants to know political problems that may be connected with the arrest, not its legislative aspect, the edition says. It is reported that shortly before the arrest of Platon Lebedev Yukos President Mikhail Khodorkovsky met with US Ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow and warned the diplomat of what might happen soon.

Platon Lebedev is suspected of illegal appropriation of a 20% share holding of JSC Apatit, the shares were owned by the government in 1994. The sum of the share holding is estimated at $283.142, 000. The crime is violation of the part 3 of the RF Criminal Code's clause 159. 
 
On July 10, the RF Prosecutor's Office started revision of the Yukos oil company at the instance of Duma deputy Mikhail Bugera.

The deputy's inquiry says that payment made by the oil company to the federal budget in 2002 made up only 90 million rubles. At that, Yukos got a compensation of about 2 billion rubles from the federal budget and paid dividends to the shareholders. The deputy thinks that the oil company "resorts to different methods of tax evasion".
 
At the same time, Yukos itself denies the facts mentioned by the Duma deputy, head of Yukos press-service Alexander Shadrin told RosBusinessConsulting news agency. According to him, the sum of taxes paid to the federal budget in 2002 made up 101.7 billion rubles. Alexander Shadrin says: "This is absolutely open information about the company; it is not clear why deputy Mikhail Bugera is deliberately spreading false facts about the oil company." 

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Author`s name Michael Simpson
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