Blow for TNK-BP board as chief financial officer quits

By Sarah Arnott
Tuesday, 5 August 2008

TNK-BP HAS lost its chief financial officer, James Owen, little more than a week after the Russian oil group's chief executive was forced abroad by visa problems.

In a letter to the board tendering his resignation, Mr Owen said that the ongoing fight for control of the company between BP and its Russian oligarch investors was making it impossible to do his job. Mr Owen, who will step down at the end of this month, joined the company in 2006 from Tengiz Chevroil and is one of the five members of TNK-BP's executive committee, alongside Robert Dudley, the chief executive, and the group's two Russian shareholder/managers Viktor Vekselberg and German Khan.

Mr Dudley, who has been running the company from an undisclosed location outside Russia since late July, expressed regret at the resignation. "He is a well seasoned and highly respected leader in the global financial community, as well as being a valuable member of our top management team inside TNK-BP," Mr Dudley said. "Our company's financial standing and internal governance processes have been greatly strengthened under his management and he will be very hard to replace."

TNK-BP's Russian shareholders, who own 50 per cent of the joint venture through their Alfa-Access-Renova (AAR) investment vehicle, have called repeatedly for Mr Dudley's resignation. They claim he runs the company as a subsidiary of BP, rather than in the interests of its shareholders. But BP denies the allegation, and Mr Dudley claims he has been subject to a harassment campaign including repeated accusation of violations of labour laws, and the long-running visa problems which culminated in his departure last month – although the Russian shareholders deny any link with the state's activities.

In the latest twist, senior management at TNK-BP face further fines pending the Russian government Labour Inspectorate's launch of a second court case alleging staffing law violations. The company has been investigated four times since April and has already been fined once. BP's chief executive, Tony Hayward, has reportedly met with Mikhail Fridman, one AAR's investors, to hammer out a peace deal but neither side have confirmed that the talks took place.

"Jim Owen has made a significant contribution to the development of TNK-BP and we regret to see him go," said Stan Polovets, chief executive of AAR.