Yukos Unit Will Pay Less

The Moscow Court of Arbitration has upheld the suit of Samaraneftegaz, a subsidiary of YUKOS, Kommersant Daily reported.

The court invalidated the decision of the Federal Tax Service?s inspectorate claiming a 165 million ruble debt for January 2005 from the company. Yet, the court of appeal may not sustain this ruling and oblige Samaraneftegaz to clear the debt. The total tax claims leveled against Samaraneftegaz come to 23.7 billion rubles.

The tax inspectorate passed the decision on July 18 last year to recover the 165 million rubles as a tax debt for January 2005. Samaraneftegazk a major producing asset of YUKOS, contested the claim and the Moscow Court of Arbitration invalided the decision on Sunday. The sum of the claim comprises about 127.2 million rubles of the debt, 25.4 million rubles in penalties and 13.2 million rubles in fines. The court also turned down a return appeal of the tax authorities to recover the sum.

The Moscow Court of Arbitration has already met Samaraneftegaz halfway. On June 2, the court ruled to cut the tax claim of 2003 for the company to 3 billion from 7 billion rubles. However, the court of appeal upheld an appeal of the Federal Tax Service and obliged the company to pay 7 billion rubles.

A source in Samaraneftegaz earlier reported to Kommersant that the company did not have the funds to clear the debts. ?The only reason why we haven?t been transferred to Rosneft yet is that their managers have no idea how to repay our debts,? he said