Khodorkovsky offers his Yukos shares to pay bill

Former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky has asked the oil company's board of directors to use his shares and those of other core shareholders to pay the government's back tax bill as the government Wednesday began seizing shareholder records.

Khodorkovsky lawyer Anton Drel told The Associated Press that the jailed CEO had taken the step to "prevent the company's bankruptcy and to prevent damage to the interests of all the workers and shareholders of the company."

"Khodorkovsky also asked the board of Yukos not to declare bankruptcy," he added.

Drel's announcement came just hours after court officers said they were moving to execute the court decision requiring Yukos to pay $3.4 billion in back taxes for 2000.

Yukos has said that paying the bill could force it into bankruptcy unless arrangements are made to stagger the payments. A court order prevents the company from selling assets to raise money to pay the bill.

The court officers accused the company of obstructing their execution order.

"The debtor was given a five-day deadline for voluntary execution, after which the Court Bailiffs Service of the City of Moscow began to enforce the court decision," Russian news agencies quoted the Justice Ministry as saying in a statement.

It said that the bailiffs had encountered "resistance to their lawful demands for compliance."

There had been considerable confusion over when the payment deadline would pass. Yukos chief financial officer Bruce Misamore had said Wednesday that the deadline would be Thursday. Earlier statements put the deadline at midnight Wednesday.

Yukos' troubles increased Monday when the Russian Tax Service delivered a new back taxes bill -- $3.3 billion for 2001. Russian Prosecutor-General Vladimir Ustinov told Ekho Moskvy radio on Tuesday that more back taxes claims were likely to follow for 2002 and 2003.

The Financial Times, citing "people close to the discussions," reported earlier that Khodorkovsky had offered Tuesday to give up some or all of the 44 percent of Yukos shares he and his closest partners own. In return, the state would agree to lift a freeze on Yukos accounts and assets, so that it could sell them to raise funds, and give the company three years to pay its tax debt.

Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov's spokesman, Alexander Zharov, said Wednesday that the government had not gotten a letter outlining the deal, which the Financial Times said was sent to both Fradkov and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin.

Dow Jones NewsWires quoted Kudrin as saying he had not yet studied the offer.

Yukos has been beleaguered for more than a year by a complex probe that many analysts see as directed by the Kremlin. Khodorkovsky has been jailed since October and he and a key associate face charges of fraud and tax evasion.

Both the United States and Britain have expressed concern about the case.

"Britain is the largest single foreign investor in the Russian Federation, and I know that Mr. Lavrov and the whole of the Russian government appreciate the need for there to be a predictable and stable climate for this foreign investment to continue," British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said at a joint news conference with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.

The Kremlin has claimed repeatedly that the actions against Yukos and Khodorkovsky are part of a broader drive against economic crime and corruption.

But observers see the company's woes as being the direct result of Khodorkovsky's alleged political aspirations and his funding of opposition parties ahead of last December's parliament elections.

President Vladimir Putin said last month that the government was not interested in seeing Yukos driven into bankruptcy. But analysts have speculated that the company's only chance for survival is for Khodorkovsky and his associate Platon Lebedev -- who like Khodorkovsky is jailed on charges of fraud and tax evasion -- and other key shareholders to relinquish their shares.

Ustinov had said Tuesday that he believes Yukos' shareholders are in a position to pay off the tax debts, given the large amounts they have received as dividends.

With a daily output of about 1.72 million barrels, or nearly one in every five that Russia extracts, Yukos is one of Russia's most strategically important businesses.

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