By John Helmer in Moscow   Confucius say – why buy a treasure from a man, if you can wait for him to lose it. The turmoil now affecting Oleg Deripaska’s United Company Rusal has become a critical test of the difference between the Russian and Chinese approach to resource concessions and national company value. […]

by John Helmer - Friday, November 20th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow Yury Privalov, the former head of Sovcomflot’s London-based shipping operations, wound up his testimony in the High Court this week with half a dozen new allegations undocumented before in court, or since his release on parole from a Moscow prison on October 10, 2008. Testifying over eight days by videolink […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, November 12th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow There is no evidence currently available that Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin has anything like the hot-line to God which enabled Noah of biblical fame to master the surge of the Black Sea, and with the help of the birdie — the first spy satellite on record – to make […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, November 5th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow Russia’s state-aid agent for struggling shipyards, the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC), is to have another chief executive after the current one, Alexander Buzakov (right figure), was ordered out by the chairman of USC’s board, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin (left figure). A newspaper leak, published in Moscow on Monday, reporting […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow It’s either a comedy starring Pinocchio, or a tragedy ending in Seppuku. According to Section 1 of Sovcomflot’s corporate code of governance — ratified by the company board in 2007, and posted on the company website — one of the principles is “prompt disclosure of complete and reliable information about […]

by John Helmer - Monday, October 26th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow It’s not so surprising that religion tends to be humourless. Making people accept the impossible usually requires threats, not jokes. There is no record that Jesus Christ ever laughed out loud. His idea of humour was sarcasm, and puns he lifted from fishermen and carpenters. But for overdoing seriousness, the […]

by John Helmer - Friday, October 23rd, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow Unprecedented disclosure of the financial intimacies of world tanker leader, state-owned Sovcomflot, continues in the UK High Court in London as Igor Borisenko, the former chief financial officer and deputy CEO of Sovcomflot, returns to the witness stand today and tomorrow. Borisenko has told the judge that, although he was […]

by John Helmer - Monday, October 19th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow The key witness in the $800 million Sovcomflot (SCF) case against former CEO, Dmitry Skarga, and charterer Yury Nikitin, has contradicted a core claim by the company in his High Court testimony this week. Igor Borisenko, SCF’s former chief financial officer, told the court he supported chartering of oil tankers […]

by John Helmer - Friday, October 16th, 2009
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On October 6, Sergey Frank criticized John Helmer in testimony in the UK High Court, condemning, as he has done before, Helmer’s reporting of the affairs of the Sovcomflot shipping company, headed by Frank since 2004. On October 12, the Foreign Press Centre of the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation telephoned Helmer in Moscow […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow One of the reasons for pornography is that it provides a low-cost alternative to the real thing. Not to mention the chance to fantasize immediately about a future pleasure that isn’t likely to materialize — or to be affordable if it does. The announcement on Tuesday of Russia’s agreement in […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
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