Thus, the Arbitration Court has recognized the legitimacy of the Tax Ministry's decision to make Yukos pay 99 billion roubles in back taxes for the year 2000.
As was reported earlier, the disputed decision was made by the ministry on April 14, 2004. On its basis, Moscow's Arbitration Court exacted from Yukos 99.342 billion roubles in back taxes. But Yukos' defense lawyers appealed against the decision, arguing that the back tax bill was unlawful and ungrounded. They claimed that Yukos was a responsible taxpayer, adding that the ministry's attack on the company was creating legal turmoil in Russia's tax legislation.
Officials at the federal Tax Ministry, however, see their actions as absolutely legitimate. They indicate that Yukos has created a network of seventeen subsidiaries, through which it has been evading local and regional taxes in some of the Federation member states with tax breaks in effect. According to the officials, those companies have also failed to deliver on their investment obligations under agreements on tax privileges.
The decision on this case has a pre-judicial meaning for the Moscow Arbitration Court's ruling that the aforementioned sum be exacted from Yukos.
Yukos lawyers told the media that the company would appeal the Arbitration Court's ruling.
"I am sure that the question about the legitimacy of the Tax Ministry's decision is waiting for the first really independent judge [to come its way]," Mikhail Dolomanov, a lawyer for the Yukos-Moscow, told reporters.
"I don't know of which instance this judge will be-arbitration or appeals-but I am certain that the Russian judicial system is strong enough to get this issue resolved in compliance with the law and that we won't have to turn to the Strasbourg Court," Dolomanov said.
At today's session of the Arbitration Court, Yukos' defense team requested that the judge Igor Petrov be removed, citing bias concerns. But the court would not grant the request.
According to Anatoly Antoshin, Vice Chair of the Moscow Arbitration Court, no grounds for the removal were found.
Petrov's questions do not indicate that the outcome of the proceedings is a precooked affair, Antoshin said. And there is no evidence to raise doubts about the judge's impartiality in the case, he added.
The Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MICEX), the price of Yukos shares has not dropped over the Arbitration Court's ruling that the company should pay 99 billion in back taxes for 2000. The ruling was a predictable one, a source on the MICEX explained to RIA.
