Upon reading Mikhail Fridman’s plaintive comment piece in the Financial Times today, I have to say that I find myself in support of his position – not necessarily the handling of the affair nor the use the state’s bureaucratic institutions instruments of pressure, but rather because the leadership of BP prevented TNK-BP from becoming all that it could be. That, in and of itself, is a great pity, as the dispute is not only bad for corporate governance and bad for Russia’s business environment, it is also having a negative impact on the country’s oil production during a time of great consumer need. If I could make just one broad, sweeping statement about the TNK-BP dispute, is to point out how it illustrates that Russia’s lack of rule of law and non-functioning courts system doesn’t just hurt political victims of the Kremlin such as Khodorkovsky, but everyone from consumers to the titans of industry in the AAR consortium and even Oleg Deripaska’s Rusal.

BP has been treating Russians as subjects By Mikhail Fridman Today an extraordinary meeting of the board of TNK-BP, the oil joint venture, has been called in Moscow to remove Robert Dudley from his role as chief executive. Viktor Vekselberg, a 12.5 per cent share-holder in TNK-BP and chair of the board compensation committee, has also made a formal request to BP to nominate an independent candidate to the post. This is the latest development in our attempts to reverse years of underperformance at TNK-BP. We have been left with no choice. Sadly, BP has refused to engage meaningfully with any of the proposals we have made in recent years. Rather than talk to us, it has chosen to misrepresent our objectives and the nature of the dispute between us.