Bankruptcy judge grants oil giant auction injunction
SHOTLIST
1. US flag and court house
2.
Front page of the
Houston Chronicle with headline reading "
Russian oil fight lands in
Houston"
3.
Bruce K. Misamore (black suit and grey tie), Yukos chief financial officer
4. SOUNDBITE (
English)
Mike Lake, spokesman for
Yukos Oil Company:
(Q: Basically, how do you take how today's proceedings went?)
"We were very encouraged by them. We think we made a great presentation of the facts and the rules that apply here, why we think the court has jurisdiction, that we proved to the judge's questions yesterday about the value of the company, how the starting bid price, in our opinion, is greatly reduced by at least by half. I think we did a great job there and also by demonstration of how unfair the tax claims by the
Russian government have been today."
5.
Tracking shot of Bruce K. Misamore
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Mike Lake, Spokesman for Yukos Oil Company:
"But it was a different situation as we clearly pointed out. We do have a presence here with our employee Bruce Misamore,
CFO (
Chief Financial Officer), we have bank accounts here which we demonstrated and proved to the court today. The reality is that the bankruptcy law doesn't state that you have to be here a certain number of days. The only statute we have to abide by is that we were in place at the time of filing and we demonstrated that today and that is the pertinent part of the discussion."
7. Tracking shot of Bruce K. Misamore and lawyers
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Mike Lake, Spokesman for Yukos Oil Company:
"If they sold Yuganskneftegaz, it would tear the heart out of our company. That is the lifeblood of the organisation. As you heard today, it was over 60 percent of our production. It is the main production unit. Yukos was set up with the three
....we are an integrated oil company. They all
function together with our distribution, our oil and refining and to do that would gut the company and really cause irreparable harm to us."
9. Tracking shot of Bruce K. Misamore and lawyers
STORYLINE
A bankruptcy judge in the US late on Thursday granted Russian oil giant Yukos' request for a temporary injunction to block this weekend's auction in
Moscow of its main production subsidiary.
In issuing the injunction, US Bankruptcy
Judge Letitia
Clark also accepted jurisdiction of Yukos' bankruptcy case filed in Houston on Tuesday.
The company had called the filing its last resort to seek an emergency order canceling the auction of Yuganskneftegaz planned for Sunday in Moscow.
Yukos now has 10 business days to seek a permanent injunction.
The injunction does not apply to the Russian government, but applies to a consortium of international banks, including
Deutsche Bank, which are putting together a multibillion-dollar loan to finance a bid in the auction.
Yukos' lawyers say that bid is to be made by
Russian state natural gas giant Gazprom at the Russian government's instruction.
They say the Russian government could go forward with the auction, but the top bidder wouldn't have the financing for the opening eight
point six (B) billion
US dollars bid if the banks withdraw.
Russian authorities say Yukos owes 27 point eight (B) billion dollars in taxes and scheduled the auction to pay part of that bill.
Yuganskneftegaz produces about 60 percent of Yukos' oil.
The injunction Clark issued emerged from the first US court action stemming from the company's fight against what has been called a
Kremlin-sponsored breakup.
A key question was whether the bankruptcy was properly filed in Houston instead of
Russia, but Clark sided with Yukos.
Yukos chief financial officer Bruce K. Misamore said the filing was proper because he operated out of his home office in Houston after getting an
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