BP wants to enter "fast track arbitration" to settle a dispute with Russian shareholders in its TNK-BP joint venture over the British company's shares and exploration deal with Rosneft. Shareholders in the AAR consortium which owns the other half of BP's TNK-BP venture want TNK-BP to remain the prime vehicle of BP's operations in Russia and Ukraine.
"Under the shareholder agreements, the process for settling disputes if they can't be settled within the shareholders is to go to independent arbitration in Sweden," a BP spokesman told Reuters on Sunday. He said that on Friday BP wrote to the chief executive of TNK-BP, Mikhail Fridman, requesting this arbitration. The case will be heard on February 1 - the day Rosneft and BP were both due to announce full-year results.
A source close to the situation told Reuters on Sunday that AAR's board would convene for an extraordinary meeting on Monday to consider withholding the payment of TNK-BP's fourth quarter dividend, worth $1.8 billion and due in February.