Sibir Energy has announced the launch of high court proceedings in Russia against two ex-directors; one of them the former Aberdeen lawyer Henry Cameron.
The UK-listed but 100% Russia-focused oil and gas operator said yesterday that Mr Cameron, as a result of his conduct, had been dismissed with immediate effect.
Mr Cameron, 69, was suspended from his Moscow-based role as Sibir’s chief executive in February as the company began an investigation into alleged “unauthorised payments” in connection with real estate owned by former Sibir director Chalva Tchigirinski.
Sibir said yesterday that it and two of its subsidiaries had begun court proceedings in connection with the unauthorised payments against Mr Cameron, Mr Tchigirinski, Gradison Consultants (a firm owned by Mr Tchigirinski) and Derbent Management. The latter is understood to have been a vehicle through which payments were allegedly channelled to Mr Tchigirinski.
Sibir said the amount being claimed was not less than £234million, but it was anticipated that claims would rise to about £285million.
It added that the court had granted a worldwide freezing order under which, pending a full hearing of the claims, Mr Tchigirinski must retain assets of at least £250million and Gradison had to retain assets worth a minimum of £120million.
Sibir said that, as a further result of the investigation, it had told the Financial Services Authority it believed the price of its shares may have been manipulated between around October 16 and 31 last year. It also said it believed a significant number of transactions in its shares between those dates were made using money that had been taken from the company.
Sibir, which asked for its Aim-listed shares to be suspended on February 19, said it expected these would remain suspended from trading for the near term.
Stuard Detmer, acting chief executive of Sibir, said: “The launch of legal proceedings underlines our determination to recover on behalf of our shareholders the funds that were taken from the company.
“Our investigation into the events of last year is ongoing and the results will be reported as soon as is practicably possible. In the meantime, we will continue to build on the record operational performance the company achieved in 2008.”
Neither Mr Cameron, who has been living in Russia, nor Mr Tchigirinski could be contacted for comment yesterday.
Sibir’s 2007 annual report shows that Mr Cameron’s total emoluments that year were £1.66million.
A Russian newspaper reported last month that Russian oil and real-estate tycoon Mr Tchigirinski, ranked 44th on the 2008 Forbes list of Russia’s richest men, had given up his main Russian businesses and left the country for America.
Sibir also said yesterday that in 2008 its crude oil production totalled 25.3million barrels, representing a 42% increase on 2007.
Its average daily production in the fourth quarter reached 76,698 barrels of oil per day (bpd) compared with an average 58,335bpd a year earlier.