Yes, this is a long one. And the third post of the day! But, I do hope you take the time to read it all. Most interesting stuff.Don't miss two previous postings. So much going on!Khordokovsky- fascinating stuff. Especially the Stichting! 2nd post- Experts fear Russia attacks are terrorist probes ahead of Sochi Olympics 1st posting Egypt's Counter Revolution: As the Army solidifies power* Recently, a certain oligarch was freed. But, his wealth remains out of reach? Perhaps because it was not really his wealth? Despite common themes and memes, Putin is not the issue where Khordokovsky's wealth or lack of wealth is concerned........Mr Khodorkovsky, the man who plundered a nation and it’s people, was released a bit earlier then his scheduled August 2014 release. Is he going to play the role of antagonist.A cage- good home for bankstersOr will he fade from view? I am linking an interesting article from NYT’s regarding Mr Khodorkovsky and his money? Or his lack of money? (It will be the 2nd to last link in the post) Does this alleged multi billionaire still have his billions?Did he ever really have the wealth we were told he accumulated? Or was he a low level player? Was Khodorkovsky a pawn. Played by bigger pieces on the chessboardYou may want to read 2 previous posts and some additional info I am relinking before the NYT’s article?Could help clarify Khodorkovsky’s dilemma where his money, or lack there of, is concerned.Flashback time: December 2010- Mikhail Khodorkovsky & Platon Lebedev found guilty of embezzlement.
“In 2003, when Khodorkovsky was arrested, he signed over all his shares in Yukos, to one Jacob Rothschild, of the Rothschild banker and Oil family. The Rothschilds have financed oil exploration in Russia since the Tsarist period, while Lord Rothschild has close connections with Yukos.”If all the top Yukos managers were unable to carry out the role, Lord Rothschild would take over, the company official told Kommersant on condition of anonymity”
There are two viable links contained in the above relinked post. BBC and Washington Times- Read them.Cause, I am not making this stuff up. Khodorkovsky signed over all his shares in Yukos to Jacob Rothschild.If you have more time to spare as we get ready for the new year, this may interest you tooFlashback # 2: December 2010- The Khodorkovsky saga-Western Style Transparency Part 1For more background a piece from William Engdhal January 2011 @ Voltaire
Cheezy moustache on Khodorkovsky with western drunkard and puppet Yeltsin
Russian Tycoon Is Free, but His Money Is Still Tied UpLove how NYT’s calls him a ‘tycoon’ Makes me laugh. He is just a well connected opportunistic thief and leech ( To drain the essence or exhaust the resources of) on the real wealth makers of any society.The people. The masses.I will highlight the very curious bits.............
Before he went to prison 10 years ago, Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky was Russia’s richest man, worth maybe $15 billion. Set free this month, he could only guess at his vastly depleted, but still formidable, wealth.
“I have no idea about my financial situation,” he told journalists in Berlin, where he was whisked on a private plane straight from a Russian penal colony.
Really, he has no idea?
He was not being coy. As Russian prosecutors began dismantling his company, Mr. Khodorkovsky’s lawyers set about safeguarding his main asset, shares in the Yukos oil company. His lawyers did such a good job entangling billions of dollars in offshore vehicles outside of Russia, mostly in the Netherlands, that it is far from clear when or if Mr. Khodorkovsky will ever gain access to what is left of his fortune.
He signed the shares over to Jacob Rothschild in 2003. How could those be his main assets?
If all the top Yukos managers were unable to carry out the role, Lord Rothschild would take over, the company
The money is now under the control of Dutch foundations, run by boards known by the benign, if Kafkaesque(?), term of benevolent interveners. ( I was thinking Orwellian myself)
Doesn't seem to be much benevolence in this intervention
There is little doubt that Mr. Khodorkovsky still has tens of millions of dollars in other investments. (notice how we have gone from billions to tens of millions?)He is not going to go hungry. In a news conference after his release, he said he had “enough money to make a living.” Striking a philosophical note, he also said he was certainly better off than most of his fellow convicts.
But that is a pittance compared with what could still be his personal stake in what is left of Yukos, once one of the world’s largest oil companies, now bankrupt. There may be as much as $920 million from the sale of the company’s overseas assets, but it is locked up in the Dutch foundations.
Control of these legal entities, called stichtings in Dutch law, is in the hands of independent boards not beholden even to the beneficiaries, possibly including Mr. Khodorkovsky. The boards are wholly autonomous, run by lawyers and former oil company executives who have found a second career in the corporate afterlife of Yukos.
This legal entity called stichtings run by lawyers and former oil company executives?
If all the top Yukos managers were unable to carry out the role, Lord Rothschild would take over, the company
If there are no "former" oil company executives and all shares were taken over by Lord Rothschild, who controls this stichting? It would seem to be a Rothschild controlled enterprise, no?
The legal insulation of these foundations (Legal insulation- which means outside of or above the law) means that not only will Mr. Khodorkovsky have to wait before seeing any proceeds, but he cannot offer assurances to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia or anyone else about how this legal process will unfold. Looming in the future is the possibility of protracted legal battles with Russia and the Russian state oil company Rosneft.
“This happened a year and a half after Khodorkovsky was arrested, and he didn’t have a hand in it and didn’t even know about it,” said Bruce K. Misamore, the former chief financial officer for Yukos. “We’ve been fighting to protect those assets for eventual distribution to shareholders of Yukos.”
He didn't even know about it? Not believable.
He and others emphasized those shareholders also included pension and mutual funds that invested in Yukos. “We will disburse the funds at the first opportunity,” Mr. Misamore said, but that could be many years from now because of pending lawsuits.
Without the efforts of the benevolent interveners, all the shareholders including Mr. Khodorkovsky would most likely have been wiped out, fully absorbed into Rosneft.
While they have a fiduciary responsibility to move as quickly as possible, the legal process has been slow. A lawsuit to recoup $100 billion from the bankruptcy of Yukos in the European Court of Human Rights dragged on for seven years, ending inconclusively.
A new suit filed in May by the benevolent interveners could last as long. Cases are also pending in Britain and the Netherlands.
The five trustees on each board of the two foundations and their lawyers, deduct “a few million” a year for legal fees and for a “market-based compensation” as directors, Mr. Misamore said.
After his release, Mr. Khodorkovsky told interviewers in Germany that he had offered President Putin assurances in a letter that he would not participate in politics and not seek to regain his shares of Yukos, though the details were unclear. Switzerland has granted Mr. Khodorkovsky a three-month visa.
It is doubtful Mr Khodorkovsky has any shares in Yukos to regain. Making that an easy enough promise.
What is clear is that the lawyers now controlling Yukos’s legacy assets made no such promise. Further muddying Mr. Khodorkovsky’s potential claim to the remnants of Yukos, and the right to sue over them in court, is his vow to give up all his shares in Yukos’s parent company, Menatep.
Menatap is covered in flashback # 2- Just scratching the surface stuff, but, at least if you are really interested some background is there
He was apparently acting on the advice of consultants who said they believed this would reduce his punishment; it did nothing of the sort. In the end, he was sentenced to eight years, followed by a second sentence of six more years.
At the time of his arrest, Mr. Khodorkovsky owned 60 percent of Menatep and thus about 42 percent of Yukos indirectly, equivalent to about $920 million of the $2.2 billion now held in the Dutch foundations.
He said he had given the personal shares of Yukos to a business partner, Leonid B. Nevzlin, who lives in Israel. Mr. Nevzlin could not be reached for comment
Leonid B Nevzlin. Is this a lawyer for Jacob Rothschild?
By law, the Dutch foundations can disburse no money until the lawsuits are resolved. The benevolent interveners are pursuing cases around the world and defending against claims from Russian state-controlled companies. They recently won $180 million from a subsidiary of the Russian state oil company in a case in federal court in New York.
The strategy can be profitable for years to come, though in this phase of the Yukos saga the legal fees run high, Mr. Misamore conceded. “This is the nature of the system,” he said. “The lawyers always win.”
Prison, Mr. Khodorkovsky said, had changed his thinking. Once a member of the youth wing of the Communist Party, he made his first fortune in a scheme allowing Soviet enterprises to convert their worthless ruble bank accounts into cash.
Later, he bought privatized oil fields for a pittance, joining the ranks of the world’s richest men on the back of assets built over decades by Communists. Prison, he said, made him think about people and not the “industrial scrap” he fought so fiercely for before.
At the news conference after his release, Mr. Khodorkovsky said he intended to focus now on human rights rather than business and said he was still trying to catch up on the details of his finances.
“I won’t sin against the truth if I say I have no idea about my financial situation,” he said. “I met only one of my former partners so far. Not because we stopped being friends, but because we stopped doing business together. I think I will deal with this situation.”
And finally! A stichting. What in the hell is that? Being a person of ordinary means I had never even heard this word previously. An explanation of "Stichting"Very briefly- Definition of a ‘stichting’; no members and no (profit) distributions allowed
- A stichting is a legal person formed by means of a juridical act, that has no members, and that intends to realise an objective (purpose), mentioned in its articles of incorporation, by using capital (property) which has been brought in for this purpose.
- If the articles of incorporation grant one or more persons the power to fill vacancies in a body of the stichting, then solely on this ground the stichting cannot be regarded to have members.
- The objective (purpose) of a stichting may not include the making of distributions to its founders (incorporators) or to those who are participating in its bodies or to others, except, as regards the latter, when these distributions are made for charitable (philanthropic) or social purposes.’
The stichting needs a minimum of one director who can be a corporate director (company or other stichting).More on 'stichting' at the link above