Two steps forward, one back in TNK-BP legal battle

By Michael Stott

MOSCOW (Reuters) - BP's embattled Russian oil venture, TNK-BP, said on Tuesday it had won the latest round of a court battle in Siberia over its use of specialist secondees and had got work permits for 48 of its foreign staff.

However, in a reflection of the tortuous legal battles that threaten to paralyse the $38 billion (19 billion pounds) company, the Moscow prosecutor's office demanded a slew of fresh information on foreign employees and secondees with a very tight deadline.

TNK-BP, Russia's second biggest foreign investment, has been wracked by a long-running fight between BP and its four Russia-connected billionaire partners over business strategy and management control.

At the same time, the firm has been deluged with a wave of tax, labour and police inspections and visa problems. BP has accused the four billionaires of using 1990s-style Russian corporate raider tactics to win control but the Russian side says it just wants to improve the firm's performance.

The Kremlin insists it is staying out of the dispute, but investors are sceptical.

In the latest developments, TNK-BP's head of communications, Peter Henshaw, said the company had won a ruling in the Siberian city of Omsk. This lifted an injunction banning TNK-BP from using 148 foreign specialists seconded from BP.

In addition, migration authorities granted 48 out of 49 work permits pending for TNK-BP's permanent foreign employees, including those for all its senior managers. The remaining application was not for a senior manager, a company source said.

Reflecting the "two steps forward, one back" nature of the company's legal battles, prosecutors conducting a probe into alleged labour law violations issued a fresh big demand for information, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said.