By John Helmer, Moscow The personal rapport between Oleg Deripaska (left) and Sergei Stepashin (right), chairman of the Accounting Chamber, has been famously uncordial. Some say Stepashin believes Deripaska plotted to cut his term as prime minister to just three months – May 12 to August 9, 1999 – and was one of those persuading […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, June 20th, 2012
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow Evraz, the Russian steelmaker listed on the London Stock Exchange main board, is being sued in the UK High Court for $35.8 million by a group of Swiss investors over a failed project to build a terminal for iron-ore and coking coal at Yuzhny port, on the Ukrainian Black Sea coast […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, June 20th, 2012
No Comments »

  READER CAUTION: in tough times collection methods get tougher. The following translation from the Russian, originally published on June 14, is presented without editing. A slightly different version appeared in Izvestia on June 13. One of Russia’s leading investigative journalists comments: “the hired criminals did exactly what they were instructed. They did not kill, […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, June 19th, 2012
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow The annual general meeting (AGM) of Rusal shareholders in Hong Kong on Friday removed Anatoly Tikhonov (image centre) from the board of directors, and replaced him with Matthias Warnig. But meeting in virtual secrecy afterwards, the new Rusal board omitted a decision on the chairmanship from its agenda. Despite a press […]

by John Helmer - Saturday, June 16th, 2012
No Comments »

by John Helmer - Friday, June 15th, 2012
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow A group of South Africans, led by Tokyo Sexwale (image left), has devised a scheme to take over mineral assets and mining concessions in the west African republic of Guinea, which the government plans to renationalize after revoking deals struck by previous Guinean governments. The Sexwale scheme is a growing threat […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, June 13th, 2012
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow The greatest Canadian whom the Russians have ever known was Glenn Gould, the pianist. But when he played in Moscow and St. Petersburg in 1957 – over the strenuous objections, even threats from the Canadian and US governments – he didn’t take his chair with him. That special chair, on which […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, June 7th, 2012
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow What an enterprising lad! While Highland Gold, a London-listed public stockholding company, was looking in a forward direction, last Friday Roman Abramovich sold it a gold and silver prospect called Klen for the greater part of which he had paid $103,774 eighteen months earlier. Abramovich has now relieved Highland Gold of […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, June 5th, 2012
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow In the jungle there’s not much call for the subtle touch. So it’s not clear whether Mikhail Fridman’s announcements this week are intended as a dagger or as a club. By resigning his chairmanship of the management board of TNK-BP, and vacating the chief executive’s role, Fridman (image centre left) hasn’t […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, May 31st, 2012
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow Oleg Deripaska (image centre) has told President Vladimir Putin that the only way to stop the rot at Rusal is to put an internationally respected foreigner at the head of the Rusal board of directors when the company’s annual general meeting (AGM) is held on June 15. Mikhail Prokhorov and Victor […]

by John Helmer - Monday, May 28th, 2012
No Comments »