The court, therefore, rejected Gazprom's appeal on the court's decision concerning Yukos Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing.
Judge Nancy Atlas, who presided at an emergency session of the panel on the Gazprom appeal on Saturday at the Texas South District court in Houston, ruled to upheld the decision to suspend temporarily all transactions of Yukos assets.
Judge Atlas announced that, in her opinion, the reversal of the decision to suspend temporarily all transactions of Yukos assets would have severely harmed Yukos, while upholding of the decision would have harmed Gazprom much less.
The emergency court session was called after Gazprom lawyers had appealed against the Huston court Thursday decision to suspend temporarily all transactions of Yukos assets and postpone Yuganskneftegaz auction scheduled for Sunday.
During the court session, the Gazprom lawyer Michael Goldberg from Baker Botts, LLP stated that the decision of the U.S. court hurt Gazprom interests. Moreover, Mr. Goldberg believes that the U.S. court did not have the legal right to deal with a case concerning a Russian company and the Russian energy sector.
On Sunday, the Russian Federal Property Fund conducts an auction sale of 76.79% of Yuganskneftegaz stock. The deadline for bid offers expired at 18:00 (Moscow time) on December 18.
The starting price of the bloc of shares is about $8.6 billion. The trading is going to be conducted in full lots of 43 common shares of Yuganskneftegaz.
The owner (debtor) of the bloc of shares is Yukos.
Federal Anti-Trust Service accepted bid offers from Gazpromneft (100% Gazprom subsidiary), First Venture Company, Intercom and Baikalfinancegroup.
