A Russian monster arrives

A Russian monster called Rosneft arrives in London tomorrow – and its arrival is not to be applauded. Conditional dealings in the oil giant will get under way on the London Stock Exchange – despite the fact that Rosneft’s main assets were seized from a rival by Vladimir Putin’s government and it may not therefore legally own its assets, that it faces years of litigation in many countries and that the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate governance rules in the US mean it would not have been allowed anywhere near Wall Street.

But, it is now clear, the City of London and the FSA, through its listing authority, has lower standards. The FTSE 100 may once have been reserved for blue-chip companies worthy of inclusion in our pension funds, but with Rosneft among the biggest UK-listed companies, that is obviously no longer the case.

It is a vast business: it is raising some