Sistema wants judge in Rosneft’s 171 bln rbl suit disqualified

UFA/MOSCOW, Jul 20 (PRIME) -- Russian multi-industry holding Sistema has filed a motion to disqualify Judge Irina Nurislamova who hears a 170.6 billion ruble suit filed against the company by oil major Rosneft over doubts about her lack of biasness, according to the information obtained by PRIME in the court on Thursday.

“Before we move on, we have a judge disqualification, as the judge made an illegal decision regarding provisional measures and is completely formal on access of parties to the case. We have doubts about objectivity and neutrality of the court, so we file a disqualification motion,” a Sistema representative said.

The court announced a break in the hearing to study the motion.

On Wednesday, Nurislamova rejected a Sistema motion to have an expert assessment of the economic impact from reorganization of oil company Bashneft under the suit. Rosneft claims that the reorganization was a disguise for asset stripping. Sergei Kopytov, Sistema’s official representative, said the company filed complaints against Nurislamova’s actions to Chief Justice of the Russian Supreme Court Vyacheslav Levedev, to the presidential administration, to the Higher Judges' Qualifications Board, and to Irina Reshetnikova, chairwoman of the Arbitration Court of the Urals Federal District.

“The order of hearing conducted by the judge, her decisions, including denial of absolutely all requests by defendants and third parties except parties that act in favor of the claimants, cause serious doubt in her neutrality and forced us to file complaints against her illegal actions,” he said.

The hearings “look more and more like a medieval court…Any rejections of defendants are thrown away. It is not worthy of speaking of other violations if even a foreigner who comes to the court with an interpreter is denied the right to speak only because he personally cannot speak Russian?” he said.

“The judge also hurries without any reason when appointing a hearing to the morning of the next day, given the fact that claimants, defendants and third parties have filed about 200 documents to the court totaling about 6,000 pages. We don’t understand how the judge was able to even cast a glance at all of them, save for understand every document.”

Mikhail Leyontyev, press secretary of Rosneft, said Sistema is doing its best to force the authorities to allow an out-of-the-court decision. “The complaint to the presidential administration is an apparent attempt to create the maximum possible public outcry around the court proceedings and it is an open mocking of the Russian legal judicial system and crude interference into the court process,” he said.

The tactic of Sistema is to drag on the process in any way possible, and lawyers of the company are not trying to improve their legal position, “but inventing more and more methods and tricks to drag on the court proceeding,” he said.

Rosneft filed the suit in May, seeking to recover a loss stemming from alleged asset withdrawal from Bashneft in 2009–2014 by Sistema.

(59.2418 rubles – U.S. $1)

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