OJSC Bahsneft and OJSC LUKOIL contested the Moscow Arbitration court ruling which revoked the license for the Trebs and Titov oil fields held by their joint venture “Bashneft-Polus” (Case No. А40-103629/2014).
The transfer of the Trebs and Titov license to “Bashneft-Polus” was challenged earlier by shareholder Railya Inozemtseva who owns 10 shares of Bashneft. Inozemtseva claimed that there were no sufficient reasons for the transfer of licence to Bashneft-Polus as it was in violation of the tender. The claim also contained calculation of profit loss that would allegedly result from the license transfer. In the appeal, Bashneft argued that the plaintiff failed to produce any proof that her rights were violated in any way, and that she used hearsay evidence. According to Bahsneft the transition of license will not affect payment of dividend, and that the plaintiff was abusing the right of a shareholder after filing a lawsuit while owning only 10 company shares. Bashneft was granted the license to Trebs and Titov in 2011 and soon signed a contract with LUKOIL on establishing a joint venture to develop the oil fields. The license was transferred to Bashneft-Polus (25.1% owned by LUKOIL and 74.9% owned by Bashneft) on December 14, 2011. Meanwhile, Federal Agency for Subsoil Use (Rosnedra) cancelled the transfer on May 18, 2012 because the joint venture had no oil processing facilities. Bashneft-Polus, after a long dispute, returned the development license in late May. Rosnedra is a Russian federal government body, which manages the state property in the field of use of subsoil. In particular, it issues subsoil licences, controls performance of licence holders and compliance with the terms of licences and terminates rights to use subsoil. Rosnedra functions are stipulated in The Regulations On The Federal Subsoil Resources Management Agency approved by Resolution of the Government of the Russian Federation # 293, dated June 17, 2004 (with amendments).
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