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Searches in BP office – commercial, not political issue - aide

Referring to the searches by the bailiffs’ service in the BP office in Moscow on August 31, Prikhodko emphasized that “the British side has taken all calmly”

MOSCOW, September 11 (Itar-Tass) ——The searches in the Moscow BP office is a commercial issue that will not tell on the atmosphere of the oncoming Russian – British talks, Russian Presidential aide Sergei Prikhodko told journalists prior to the Moscow meeting of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and British Prime Minister David Cameron on September 12.

Referring to the searches by the bailiffs’ service in the BP office in Moscow on August 31, Prikhodko emphasized that “the British side has taken all calmly”. “In my opinion, all necessary explanations have been given”, he added. In his words, “no real seizures have been made and all the documents are where they used to be. This is an issue that is exclusively commercial. No element of the state is present here, as some of the print media wrote. The roots of the situation are to be looked for not in the political, but exclusively in the economic sphere”, he noted.

The actions by the bailiffs in the Moscow office of BP Exploration Operating Company Ltd. were connected with the search for the documents on TNK-BP – Rosneft deal on the lawsuit filed by the TNK-BP minority shareholders, the lawyers representing the interests of the minority shareholders stated. The leadership of the BP company considered the search in its office to be a manifestation of pressure.

BP head Robert Dudley, as ITAR-TASS got to know, is among the members of the British delegation accompanying British Prime Minister David Cameron to Moscow.