News

January 07, 2009

Simply Waiting Drinking Tea With Honey: Oleg Mitvol, The Sometime Notorious Russian Mining Regulator, Prepares For Battle With His Own Ministry

By John Helmer in Moscow

Oleg Mitvol, Russia's well-known mining regulator and gadfly to Aim-traded stock values, has filed a half-dozen lawsuits in Moscow, challenging the terms of his removal from his functions. And he appears to have Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin on his side.

The legal and political moves follow months of effort by Vladimir Kirillov, who as the new chief of Russia's mine licence inspectorate, Rosprirodnadzor, has tried to fire Mitvol, his independent deputy. In the annals of the federal Ministry of Natural Resources, Mitvol's resistance is unique, as is the apparent reluctance of the minister, Yury Trutnev, a former provincial governor backed by the LUKoil oil company, to intervene in the contest of wills, and in the conflict beneath the surface of...