Courtroom Report: February 8, 2010
"I never saw any criminal activity." - Pavel Maliy, prosecution witness.
Mr. Maliy returned. The entire morning session was focused on examining information found in an SEC Form F-1 draft. Questioned by Messrs. Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, Mr. Maliy continued to reinforce his earlier testimony about the public availability of most of the information found in his draft. Explaining his sources to the court, Mr. Maliy continued to highlight YUKOS US GAAP statements. Some of the specifics discussed included the company's ownership of its production subsidiaries, its credit rating and its financial health.
Mr. Maliy answered numerous questions about Project "Voyage", participants' knowledge of Group MENATEP and its ownership of YUKOS shares. Answering questions about YUKOS' privatization, Mr. Maliy testified that the summary of YUKOS' privatization was drafted by using publically available documents - documents provided by Group MENATEP and by using information learned during personal interviews, including with Mr. Lebedev himself. Mr. Maliy was unaware of anyone contesting any information outlined in the privatization memorandum, in court or otherwise.
The strength of YUKOS was, once again, demonstrated by Mr. Maliy's testimony about the credit rating the company received from Standard & Poor's and Moody's. Mr. Maliy was describing a transparent company whose disclosures, in addition to being published on its dual-language website, were published by the credit agencies, as well.
Mr. Lakhtin asked to re-direct, but spent most of the afternoon session being unable to ask the kind of questions that Mr. Maliy was able to understand and to answer. Part of Mr. Lakhtin's failure was based on misstating Mr. Maliy's testimony or what was in the case materials. Another issue was his attempt to ask about companies operating in Closed Administrative-Territorial Formations (ZATO), based on a tax case against Forest Oil.
With Mr. Lakhtin attempting to ask questions based on the Forrest Oil tax case, Mr. Khodorkovsky reiterated his suspicion that the prosecution was using the courtroom to investigate another case. Mr. Lebedev argued that Mr. Lakhtin was looking to pressure Mr. Maliy and asked the court not to forget what this trial was about.