Former Canadian prime minister Jean Chretien was reportedly involved Monday in negotiating a deal between the Russian government and the beleaguered oil giant Yukos to save it from bankruptcy from disputed tax bills.
The group Menatep, which holds the controlling stake in Yukos, said in a statement published Friday and made available to AFP Monday that it "welcomes" Chretien's involvement in the negotiations.
The statement said Chretien was resolving "tax and other judicial issues that Yukos has come across, and also (the subject) of Mikhail Khodorkovsky," the company's jailed founder who faces up to nine more years in prison on his own fraud and embezzlement charges.
Yukos, Russia's largest crude exporter, has managed to pay 700 million dollars of its 3.4 billion dollar tax bill for the year 2000 so far, and its executives have vowed to try their best to pay off the remainder within weeks.
But the bill could grow to up to 10 billion dollars if the government pushes through with 2001-2003 tax claims - a figure larger than the company's market capitalisation.
Confirmation of Chretien's involvement in the Yukos affair was not immediately available.
Yukos officials refused to comment, as did the Canadian embassy in Moscow.
The company, seen as one of the most transparent in Russia, is hitting a moment of truth since its oil rail exports - which account for one fourth of all Yukos oil shipped abroad - could be shut down at the end of the week because it is unable to make tariff payments.
But Yukos share prices were soaring Monday, up some 15 percent on the main dollar-denominated RTS exchange on news that the company would not have to pay a 6.7 billion rubble (317 million dollar, 226 million euro) fine to the court bailiffs.
It was a rare piece of good news for the company and some analysts, and investors, saw it as a sign that the fortunes of Yukos were about to change, as the conflict between it, Khodorkovsky and the Kremlin comes under increasing international scrutiny.
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