Court rejects Glencore appeal over stake in Rosneft

An attempt by the commodities trader Glencore to hold on to its stake in Rosneft has been thwartedafter a Moscow court dismissed its appeal against an order for the seizure of its holding in Russia’s largest oil producer.
The FTSE 100 company had challenged a decision to allow Russia’s largest bank to seize Glencore’s 0.57 per cent stake in Rosneft as payment for a debt of €114.8 million.
Sberbank, the state-ownedbank, secured court approval to seize Glencore’s assets as payment for oil supplies delivered under an agreement with the bank’s Swiss commodities subsidiary, Sber Trading Swiss.
Glencore had sought to have the decision reversed, arguing that the Russian court was not the right venue for the case and that the order to seize assets was “illegal” and “unfounded”, according to documents from the Moscow arbitration court.
Glencore announced it was reviewing its stake in Rosneft at the outbreak of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and later wrote down the value of its interest on the grounds that there was “no realistic way to exit” its holdings “in the current environment”.
BP also holds a 19.75 per cent stake in Rosneft and has been unable to secure permission from the Russian authorities for a divestment of the holding on acceptable terms.
Bernard Looney, BP’s chief executive at the time of the invasion, came under pressure to get rid of its shareholding from Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary at the time, which prompted the oil major to write down the value of the stake and treat it as a financial asset with no expected income.
Glencore is now trying to fend off an asset seizure from Russia, arguing that it “did not commit any actions that would give grounds to hold it liable and deprive it of property”. The group also said the “presence of an indirect corporate connection” with Sberbank was not a basis for seizing a stake worth three times the size of the debt it owes.
The energy trader’s appeal has been dismissed but the company’s Dubai subsidiary has now applied for a further hearing to postpone the seizure of the shares, according to Energy Intelligence, an information business, which first reported the news.
The court found “no grounds for cancelling or changing the appealed judicial act” and ruled it was the right place for the adjudication because sanctions introduced “due to political motives” created doubts that a foreign court would be able to deliver “a fair trial”.
The judgment, seen by The Times, said: “A Russian legal entity has the right to apply to an arbitration court in the Russian Federation with an application for a ban on initiating or continuing proceedings in the relevant foreign court if the foreign state on whose territory the proceedings are being conducted applies restrictive measures.
“There is no reason to believe that the present dispute, the subject of which is a Russian company and in respect of which reorganisation has been introduced, will be objectively and fairly considered in a foreign court.”
Glencore declined to comment.