This would actually be really, really funny if it weren't so tragically true, sad, and thoroughly outlandish. From the Moscow Times: Blaming the turmoil, Standard and Poor's took the unprecedented step Thursday of disclosing only the top 10 names on its annual transparency and disclosure list of Russia's 90 largest publicly traded companies. Investors and company representatives waiting for the information at a news conference called by the international ratings agency were stunned by the decision. "It is complete absurdity that transparency ratings are being kept secret. What are transparency ratings when they aren't transparent?" said Alexei Navalny, an individual Russian stockholder currently involved in several transparency-related lawsuits against Rosneft, which was ranked as the second most transparent company on the list after CTC Media. This practically reminds me of the time back when PricewaterhouseCoopers withdrew years of its audits of Yukos to help the state's prosecution of Mikhail Khodorkovsky after ...

This would actually be really, really funny if it weren't so tragically true, sad, and thoroughly outlandish. From the Moscow Times: Blaming the turmoil, Standard and Poor's took the unprecedented step Thursday of disclosing only the top 10 names on its annual transparency and disclosure list of Russia's 90 largest publicly traded companies. Investors and company representatives waiting for the information at a news conference called by the international ratings agency were stunned by the decision. "It is complete absurdity that transparency ratings are being kept secret. What are transparency ratings when they aren't transparent?" said Alexei Navalny, an individual Russian stockholder currently involved in several transparency-related lawsuits against Rosneft, which was ranked as the second most transparent company on the list after CTC Media. This practically reminds me of the time back when PricewaterhouseCoopers withdrew years of its audits of Yukos to help the ...

The news of this court ruling allowing Rosneft and Gunvor to remain opaque about their commercial relations is a prime example of Russia's state capture. It's no wonder that so many speculate that Gunvor is the biggest siloviki piggy bank. A Russian court left a veil of secrecy over oil trader Gunvor on Wednesday, rejecting a private shareholder's lawsuit demanding state oil company Rosneft disclose dealings with the firm. Moscow Arbitration Court Judge Alexei Manenkov ruled disclosure of the information to shareholders was not required under Russian corporate law. Rosneft had said its dealings with Gunvor were a commercial secret. Gunvor handles a third of Russian oil exports and has repeatedly won rights to export a large share of Rosneft's Urals blend crude in regular tenders by the state owned company, Russia's largest producer of crude. The company's co-owner, Gennady Timchenko, has rejected speculations he enjoyed special ties with former president ...