I would really love to write, "Long live Russian commercial arbitration—the fairest arbitration in the world." But I can’t. So: both lawsuits were dismissed. **1. Navalny v. Rosneft. **Rosneft’s position: *we are under no obligation to show anything. Everything an ordinary shareholder is entitled to know is contained in the glossy brochure handed out at the annual meeting. We will not say a word either about the very existence of contractual relations with Gunvor, or about the volume of oil supplied to it, or about the price. *The funniest part was that during the hearing the judge asked: why don’t you want to bring Gunvor in as a third party? The Rosneft guy was stunned, and we happily filed the motion. A recess was immediately announced, after which our motion was denied and the claim itself was dismissed. 2. Navalny v. Transneft. Transneft’s position: *yes, last year we spent 7 billion rubles on charity. So what’s it to you? That’s none of your business. If you’re a shareholder, we will disclose only the fact that charitable spending exists and no details whatsoever. We won’t say who received those billions. No, it’s not a trade secret, but we still won’t say. The judge spent a long time urging Transneft to settle: basically, come on, tell them at least something. *But the guy would not budge: Transneft will provide no information about its charitable activities to anyone. Forgive the grandstanding, but decisions like these do far more damage to the investment climate than the war with Georgia and the Mechel affair. In effect, the court has established that a minority shareholder in Russia has no rights at all except to sit at the annual meeting once a year, look intelligent, and drink free Pepsi. Some are allowed to throw billions around left and right on "charity" and keep it secret—while paying no dividends. Let me remind you that Transneft spends far more on charity than on repairs to its entire pipeline network: half a billion dollars over the last two years. Others are allowed to ship oil through any schemes they like and at any prices they like, also pay next to no dividends (a 1.5% yield for 2007), enrich offshore oil traders, and not report to shareholders. So much for the "people’s IPO." On the 28th we’ll receive both rulings in hand and file an appeal with the "Ninth" (the Ninth Arbitration Court of Appeal). Let me answer the question: why are you so naive? Why do all this if the result is predictable? True, we had no particular illusions. We understand perfectly well that in practice our question to Rosneft sounds like this: **Why don’t you disclose the scheme by which Putin’s buddy Mr. Timchenko makes money selling oil that belongs to the multinational people of the Russian Federation! **And the question to Transneft, stripped of legal formalities, sounds like this: **Guys, you embezzled $500 million—give us the details and we’ll demand that you be jailed! **We fully understand that I. I. Sechin’s ability to "work with the court" (Igor Sechin, chairman of Rosneft’s board) is, to put it mildly, somewhat greater than that of our team. Still, this is one of those questions like: why run in elections if everything is already decided; why fight the cops if they have the power; why fight bribery if there are crooks everywhere; why try to improve anything at all if you can just sit and watch TV. Do something, or just watch TV and complain? I choose to do something and to fight. Some people like holding rallies, some like chatting on the radio, some like scribbling articles, some just like talking crap on LiveJournal. I do all of that regularly, but I believe there also has to be substantive work. The courts are substantive: informative, and they create problems for crooks. They solve those problems, and we create new ones for them. If only because the entire blogosphere now knows about Transneft’s "charity," none of this was in vain. I’ll file a hundred thousand million lawsuits—over every violation, and I’ll litigate every single one. As long as I have the strength, and as long as there are people left who help me and support me in this. And there are such people, and not a few. Rosneft has 130,000 minority shareholders, and today all of them were shown that they are nothing but extras at the annual shareholders’ meeting. "Look, these are our owners. Hi, guys, sit tight, the buns will be here soon." So that’s how it is. Maybe this came out a bit emotional, but that’s the mood I’m in. Anyone who has ever been to court knows that even if the decision is predetermined and you are fully prepared to lose, it’s still unpleasant to hear the words, "the court denies the blah-blah-blah petition" ))) But whatever. As the song goes: We are Jedi knights, we are fighters against evil. We’ll tie the dark force into a knot. The forces of good will win, and the dark forces will be tied into a knot. And thanks to everyone who wished us luck and helped publicize the "Transneft case." P.S. If anyone wants to dive into the really, really deep legal weeds, I can suggest talking to aglushenkov (my lawyer, Alexander Glushenkov) or my legal assistant fil_defense.