Monday, November 22, 2010

Supreme Arbitrazh Court to Review Minority Shareholders' Right to Information

On December 9, the Presidium of Russia's Supreme Arbitrazh (Economic) Court will consider draft guidelines for resolving disputes over shareholder requests for company information. The draft guidelines (in the form of an “information letter” that would not be formally binding but would have persuasive authority with lower courts) provide that an open joint stock company must provide information unless the request is irrelevant to the company’s economic performance or is legally irrelevant (including for reasons of expiration of a statute of limitations). The draft guidelines also provide that the shareholder is not required to state a motivation for the request. The impetus for the Court’s consideration of the issue is a case pending before the Court between Rosneft and minority shareholder Alexei Navalny over his request for minutes of meetings of the board of directors in 2009. (See Nov. 18 post on Navalny's dispute with Transneft.)

http://www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/print/2010/11/10/249229

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