MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian authorities piled up yet more pressure on the embattled Yukos oil giant, issuing a warrant against its chief lawyer and promising to increase its multi-billion-dollar tax bill.
The Interfax news agency quoted Dmitry Gololobov, the firm's chief lawyer, as saying that a Russian court sanctioned his arrest on November 12 following a request from the general prosecutor's office, which has been conductive the case against Yukos.
Interfax said Gololobov was currently in Great Britain.
Meanwhile an unnamed official with tax ministry told Interfax that the Yukos tax bill, which currently stands at 18.4 billion dollars for the years of 2000-2002, is likely to jump by at least another six billion dollars as the authorities turn their attention to back debt of 2003.
"They used the same schemes (as during 2002 for which it is alleged to have underpaid 6.7 billion dollars in taxes), but the volume of production and exports increased, so the sum of the tax debt will increase," the official said.
The official also said that the tax burden will increase further as authorities issue separate tax bills to Yukos subsidiaries.
"We have only presented Yukos with (taxes) that concern the head company," the official said. "We are separately checking subsidiaries."
Separately, a chief office manager at Yukos's main subsidiary, Yukos-Moscow, was arrested on suspicion of stealing 22 million rubles (766,550 dollars) from the firm, Yukos officials and Interfax reported.
Yukos has been under fire from prosecutors for most of this year in what many analysts say is a politically-motivated case that aims to disassemble the company as punishment for the political ambitions of its founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
11/18/2004 - 16:30 GMT - AFP