Response to Navalny Minority shareholders are entitled to request any documents, including contracts with counterparties, but only from their own company, not its subsidiaries — that is the position of the Supreme Arbitration Court (VAS, Russia’s top commercial court). Vedomosti has obtained the final draft of the VAS clarifications on shareholders’ information rights. The document was broadly approved at the court’s presidium meeting in December. Read the full article I wish they’d sign off on this letter already. We’ve been waiting for it for a long time. Besides, we’re currently in court with Transneft over the production of minutes, and the next hearing is next week, so these clarifications would be very timely. By the way, Transneft has taken a very curious position: they understand perfectly well that there are no legal grounds to refuse to give me the minutes, so instead they are stubbornly and bluntly arguing that Navalny is not a Transneft shareholder. Basically, they say I’m not listed with their registrar (ROST). An account statement from the Troika Dialog depository doesn’t satisfy them: *We don’t know any “Troika Dialog”; it isn’t a shareholder either, and it isn’t recorded with our registrar. *So, from Transneft’s point of view, everyone who bought its shares through Troika is not a shareholder. It’s a paradoxical position, but effective to some extent: prove you’re not a camel. It’s strange, of course, that the judge isn’t telling them to stop all this nonsense.