UK oil firms cheating investors, says Russia

Russia stepped up the pressure on British-listed energy and mining companies yesterday with an influential Moscow regulator alleging that some of them were “cheating” investors by exaggerating their reserves.

Oleg Mitvol, deputy head of the environmental watchdog Rosprirodnadzor, called on the London Stock Exchange and other authorities in the UK to stamp out the alleged abuses.
His call comes at a time when the Kremlin has been taking back Russian assets from UK companies such as Shell and BP which it believes were obtained on the cheap when times were bad in Moscow.

“I think they [investors] are already duped or cheated. I don’t think we have to wait for a big crisis to occur in order to see this problem,” Mr Mitvol said.

“When a proprietor-licensee has data which can be different from the state data, this is firstly abnormal and secondly a fraud. I can add that soon there will be results of our work with one company announcement which will significantly reduce reserves,” he said.

In the spring the Russian Interfax news agency suggested Rosprirodnadzor was looking into the activities of a swath of small London-listed companies.

Yesterday he declined to say which companies particularly concerned him. “We will be working on all companies to implement certain arrangements to bring data into compliance with the state’s certified reserves figures,” he said.

Guardian