for those who read the headline but not the article Navalny Agreed to Settle with Transneft* Minority shareholder in Transneft, blogger Alexei Navalny, agreed to enter into a settlement with the company.* I got a lot of messages like, "how much did they pay you" or "we believed in you so much." Let me explain (even though the article already says it all). My lawsuit against Transneft is currently being heard in the arbitration court, seeking disclosure of the board of directors' meeting minutes. I wrote about it here. The next hearing will take place on Monday. At the previous hearing (this past Monday), the judge, as required, suggested that the parties reach a settlement. We, as is usually the case, said that we were ready to settle if they provided us with the minutes. That is the settlement proposal we sent to Transneft: you meet our terms, and we withdraw the lawsuit. If you believe the minutes are confidential, then we sign a confidentiality agreement. We propose settlements like this in all of our information-disclosure cases. In particular, I made such an agreement with Sberbank: realizing that litigation was pointless, they handed over the documents I wanted, and I withdrew the lawsuit. A confidentiality agreement is also standard practice. I have such agreements signed with Lukoil, Inter RAO UES, and RusHydro. This case has nothing to do with either Transneft's "charity" or the ESPO pipeline (Eastern Siberia–Pacific Ocean oil pipeline).