Russian tycoons square up in London boutique

By Guy Faulconbridge

MOSCOW (Reuters) - For Roman Abramovich, the billionaire owner of Chelsea football club, not even a luxury goods store in London's exclusive Knightsbridge district is a refuge from the rough and tumble of Russian business.

Abramovich was shopping in the area when rival Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky spotted him and charged over to serve him with a writ, Berezovsky told Reuters on Monday.

It was thousands of miles from the Siberian oilfields the two men are fighting over, but they were drawn together by their love of the finer things in life: Abramovich was in a Hermes luxury goods shop, and Berezovsky was in Dolce & Gabbana.

"I was buying presents in Sloane Street and when I left the Dolce & Gabbana, my bodyguards said Abramovich was in Hermes which is just next door to Dolce & Gabbana," Berezovsky told Reuters by telephone from London.

"When he saw me, Abramovich tried to hide behind his bodyguards," he said. "I threw it at his feet and told him I was serving him the writ, then I turned around and left the shop."

A spokesman for Abramovich declined to comment on the incident, or the dispute over Russian assets.

Berezovsky, once one of Russia's most influential men, fled Russia in 2000 after falling out of favour with President Vladimir Putin.

He has become one of Putin's fiercest critics from his base in London, where he was granted political asylum in 2003.