YUKOS seeks to stave off bankruptcy

YUKOS seeks to stave off bankruptcy
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian oil major YUKOS is doing all it can to pay a $7 billion (4 billion pounds) back-tax bill and stave off bankruptcy, Chairman Viktor Gerashchenko has told the Kommersant daily.
"(The authorities) are trying to bankrupt us, and we are doing all we can to fulfil the demands placed on us by the tax authorities," Gerashchenko said.
"YUKOS itself will not declare bankruptcy."
He said officials were conducting a coordinated campaign to drive YUKOS out of business, and were "disinforming" President Vladimir Putin, who has said he did not want Russia's largest oil exporting firm to be bankrupted.
"The task facing state structures is to bankrupt YUKOS, and to subsume its assets into (state oil firm) Rosneft and (gas monopoly) Gazprom," said Gerashchenko.
Gerashchenko was speaking ahead of a YUKOS board meeting on Wednesday which will discuss how to recover $3 billion from Sibneft in return for completing the dissolution of a failed merger.
The merger hit trouble in the run-up to the arrest of YUKOS' founder and main shareholder Mikhail Khodorkovsky last October.
Many analysts see the prosecution of Khodorkovsky on fraud and tax evasion charges, and the tax onslaught against YUKOS, as Kremlin punishment for his support for the political opposition and refusal to kow-tow to Putin.
Bailiffs are demanding the payment of $7 billion in back taxes for 2000 and 2001, and have threatened to auction off YUKOS' core producing asset, Yugansk, if the money is not paid.
YUKOS , which pumps 1.7 million barrels of oil daily, says it cannot pay the tax bills as long as a freeze on its assets and bank accounts remains in force.
Courts (LSE: CRTO.L - news) have ordered share deals underpinning the Sibneft merger to be unwound, but YUKOS is still seeking to recover the $3 billion it paid for 20 percent of Sibneft, effectively controlled by Chelsea soccer club owner Roman Abramovich.
Gerashchenko said YUKOS would delay the return of a 57 percent stake in Sibneft it still holds, and if necessary take its case to international arbitration, if Sibneft does not return the money.
"We can always return to court in London. We will find money to pay our lawyers," he said. "And we know we will win."

(From Yahoo Business News)