By John Helmer, Moscow When a powerful Kremlin official recently confided that he values the usefulness of UK High Court proceedings involving some of Russia’s wealthiest businessmen, he probably wasn’t thinking of the case which concluded on Friday with a judgement issued by Justice Sir Geoffrey Vos. The Russian official was intimating that the British […]

by John Helmer - Monday, July 2nd, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow What an enterprising lad! While Highland Gold, a London-listed public stockholding company, was looking in a forward direction, last Friday Roman Abramovich sold it a gold and silver prospect called Klen for the greater part of which he had paid $103,774 eighteen months earlier. Abramovich has now relieved Highland Gold of […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, June 5th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow Every competent gardener knows that horse shit makes valuable fertilizer, so long as you give it at least two months of airing and composting to get rid of the acidity which kills plant roots, and the seeds which grow weeds where you don’t want them. Chicken shit is more balanced, biochemically […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, May 1st, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow If you believe what RusPetro Plc says, this loss-making venture on a small oil patch in Khantiy-Mansiysk — a patch no major Russian oil company has wanted to bother with — is already worth a billion dollars, and is bound to be worth multiples of that. The reason, also according to […]

by John Helmer - Saturday, April 28th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow Vladimir Kekhman, the controlling shareholder of Joint Fruit Company (JFC), Russia’s biggest banana trader, has received a summons to appear in the UK High Court to face charges of contempt of court. If he is found culpable, he may be jailed. If he doesn’t appear and is convicted, he may be […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, March 15th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow Depending on whose opinion you trust, there’s not a great deal of difference between the business of Rod Christie-Miller (image) and the business of Anton Malevsky. It’s the business of conveying fear to motivate action – or inaction. A parachute jump put an end to Malevsky’s line of work. The UK […]

by John Helmer - Monday, February 13th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow The UK High Court action by the Schillings law firm, acting for Nathaniel Rothschild in a libel claim against the Daily Mail and Associated Newspapers, was dismissed today by Justice Sir Michael Tugendhat. The ruling also undermines libel threats by Schillings acting for Deripaska against newspapers in South Africa, Hong Kong, […]

by John Helmer - Friday, February 10th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow In Abakan at this time of year the sun doesn’t rise until 10 in the morning, and by 5 it’s too dark to see much. It’s always been this way in the days which follow Kreshenskiy Moroz (the Feast of the Epiphany, old calendar). This week in the capital of the […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, January 24th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow “Russia’s federal security service, the successor to the KGB, has launched a cold-war style attack on non-governmental organisations and human rights groups, linking them with alleged espionage by British diplomats in Moscow.The accusations against the British diplomats come within weeks of Russia assuming the presidency of G8 from Britain and just […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, January 19th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow After claims a week ago that the Daily Mail newspaper and its publisher were expecting to go to trial next month on a libel claim by Nathaniel Rothschild relating to the Russian aluminium business, it has now been revealed that Rothschild has exposed an even more secret business deal he was […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, December 21st, 2011
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