London's High Court imposed on Tuesday an injunction on the strategic Rosneft-BP deal on share swap until February 25 following a lawsuit by the AAR consortium of Russian shareholders in the TNK-BP joint venture.
The injunction could be extended depending on the decision of the Stockholm Arbitration Court. BP said in a statement on Tuesday that it hoped to resolve the dispute with the Russian shareholders in TNK-BP through the Stockholm court by February 25.
AAR, which owns half of TNK-BP, filed a complaint against the deal with London's High Court late last month. According to AAR, the Rosneft-BP deal violated a shareholder agreement between BP and the AAR consortium which does not allow BP to pursue projects in Russia and Ukraine without TNK-BP and requires bilateral consultations in exceptional cases.
BP and Rosneft agreed a $16 billion share swap deal on January 14 under which Rosneft will give BP 9.5 % of its stock in exchange for 5% of BP. The two firms also agreed to jointly undertake exploration and production projects on the Russian Arctic shelf.
MOSCOW, February 1 (RIA Novosti)
