BP criticised a raid by bailiffs and armed special forces troopers of its Moscow office on Wednesday, describing it as “part of a pressure campaign against BP’s business in Russia”.
Speaking in Moscow, Jeremy Huck, president of BP Russia, said the company believed the actions were “without merit”. The raid, ordered on Tuesday by a court in west Siberia, compounded the UK oil group’s woes in Russia a day after ExxonMobil stole a march on it by signing a historic Arctic exploration deal with Rosneft, the Russian oil group.
BP faces a lawsuit by minority shareholders in TNK-BP, its Russian joint venture, who are suing for Rs87bn ($3bn) over the collapse of a proposed tie-up between BP and Rosneft which fell apart this year.