Courtroom Report: February 1, 2010
The prosecution asked for more time to respond to Mr. Lebedev's motion. The prosecution called Mr. Pavel Maliy to the stand. From April 2002 through May 2004, Mr. Maliy was a director at the Directorate for Corporate Finance at YUKOS-Moscow.
Mr. Lakhtin's questions focused on Mr. Maliy's participation in a project for proposed listing of YUKOS on the NYSE, appropriately named "Voyage." Mr. Maliy explained that the work on the project was being done for the entire 2002, but was halted in February 2003. Mr. Maliy testified that after being halted, the project never resumed. Actively involved in the project were Pricewaterhouse Coopers, UBS, Akin Gump and various consultants. According to Mr. Maliy, [Group MENATEP] actively participated, as well.
Mr. Lakhtin spent most of the morning session questioning Mr. Maliy on specific issues that Mr. Maliy briefed Mr. Sheiko, YUKOS Vice-President and Director of Directorate for Corporate Finance at YUKOS-Moscow. Those included the history of YUKOS' privatization, YUKOS' ownership structure and discussions on Behles Petroleum, Baltic Petroleum and South Petroleum.
Mr. Lakhtin made numerous attempts to get Mr. Maliy's opinion on why the project did not come to fruition with the filing of SEC Form F-1. Mr. Maliy, who was careful to eschew speculation, would point out that Mr. Lakhtin's questions trended toward hypothetical. Not achieving success and even complaining that the witness was not answering the way he answered during investigation, Mr. Lakhtin, through minimum effort, persuaded the court to allow him to read interrogation transcripts.
The rest of the hearing was devoted to Mr. Maliy's interrogation by investigator Iogan. The transcript covered the same topics on which Mr. Maliy testified in court, albeit in a bit more detail. Mr. Iogan was not averse to asking Mr. Maliy to speculate on why the listing did not happen, going so far as to suggest that Mr. Khodorkovsky was aware he would be violating American laws if he signed the form. Mr. Maliy attempted to explain to Mr. Iogan some basic information about the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which was signed into law around the time YUKOS began actively working on project "Voyage."
The audio tape of the 26-page transcript was not found in the case materials and the prosecution requested adjournment until Tuesday, to allow it time to contact the investigator. Mr. Krasnov noted that the tape was missing during the pre-trial stage when the defendants were examining case materials, telling the court that investigators violated the Criminal Procedure Code and denied Messrs. Khodorkovsky and Lebedev's right to an adequate defense.