UPDATE: Federal agency’s head says no Bashneft sale block from Ulyukayev

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MOSCOW, Sep 11 (PRIME) -- The Federal State Property Management Agency did not see any attempts from former Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev to block participation of oil major Rosneft in privatization of oil company Bashneft, Deputy Minister and head of the agency Dmitry Pristanskov said on Monday during court hearings.

Ulyukayev, the first government official arrested on suspicions of corruption, can face 15 years in prison if his guilt is proved. He pleaded not guilty in August and said it was a setup organized by Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin and the Federal Security Service.

“There were no restrictions, as we saw it,” he said. “There were no words specifically about Rosneft in a report, but there were no restrictions.”

There should have been a special government ruling made for any restrictions to be imposed, and the mentioned report was prepared under a ruling of Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, who defined a task of the Economic Development Ministry as “to ensure implementation of a presidential decree on privatization on the basis of reasonability,” Pristanskov said.

He also said he was unaware about any activity of Ulyukayev in ordering the service to drag on the deal on privatization of Bashneft or in excluding Rosneft from the deal.

Alexei Yakovitsky, CEO of VTB Capital – an investment branch of Russia’s second largest lender VTB Bank and the agent of privatization of Bashneft, also said that Ulyukayev did not provide any materials to VTB Capital stating that the participation of Rosneft is unwelcome.

On September 5, a public prosecutor said citing a statement of former Rosneft Vice President Oleg Feoktistov that Ulyukayev demanded a U.S. $2 million bribe from Sechin threatening to impede operations of the company.

Yulia Moskvina, a leading analyst of the ministry’s corporate management department, said during the investigation that Ulyukayev personally amended the materials for a Bashneft auction and initiated exclusion of Rosneft from the list of contenders for Bashneft.

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