GML, formerly Group Menatep, is swapping oil for alternative energy as it attempts to untangle itself from the mess of Yukos. It owns 51 per cent of the one-time Russian energy giant but is in the process of selling Yukos’s foreign assets to pay debts and tax.
The company is withdrawing from the oil industry and will use its estimated $2.5 billion (£1.3 billion) in assets to develop alternative energy technologies instead. It will also move its base from Gibraltar to London.
Meanwhile, Tim Osborne, a GML director, is under criminal investigation by the Russian Federation over claims that Yukos’s assets were illegally moved from Russia to the Netherlands. In his first interview since the investigation was announced last month, Mr Osborne told The Times that the Russians were trying to intimidate him.
“This is just a bully-boy tactic in retaliation for trying to defend Yukos shareholders, including GML,” he told The Times.
Three other Western executives, all Yukos directors, are also being put under scrutiny. The investigation was announced after a Dutch court ruled that the proceeds from selling Yukos’s foreign assets should go to GML and not to Russian creditors, which include the Kremlin.
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Mr Osborne said: “The Kremlin wants to see GML receive nothing from Yukos and they are trying to make our lives as miserable as possible.”
Mr Osborne, a lawyer at a practice in London, said that the investigation was harming his business because he had been advised not to travel.
“I can’t believe that any European government would grant an extradition warrant, given that this is clearly a politically motivated investigation, but I’m not willing to take a chance,” he said.
Despite the turbulent history of Group Menatep and Yukos, Mr Osborne has decided not to hire bodyguards.
Stephen Curtis, Mr Osborne’s predecessor on the Menatep board, was killed in a helicopter crash in 2004, prompting numerous conspiracy theories. GML’s owner, Leonid Nevzlin, is in self-imposed exile in Israel.
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Mr Osborne said: “Mrs Osborne would probably prefer if I took some precautions, but I’m British and we tend to assume that everybody plays by our rules.
“I can’t imagine why anyone would try to get rid of me; I’m just a lawyer. All that would happen is somebody else would step into my shoes. But I have told the police, the Home Office and the Foreign Office what is going on.”