China Factory Conflict Surrounded By Crime

<BR>Two Lomonosov China Factory (LFZ) consultants have been assaulted. The two victims, legal advisor Natalia Salangina and financial consultant Yury Pankov, connect the assault with events at LFZ.<BR>As a result of the assault on 4 December by unknown parties, Yury Pankov suffered concussion and a broken nose, while Natalia Salinga escaped with a slight contusion.<BR>By early November, 64% of shares in LFZ had been bought by six offshore companies backed by two American investment funds KKR (19.55%) and TUSRIF (19.55%), Dutch company Stoomhamer Group (10%) and a private individual, Maxwell Asgary (14.1%). The new shareholders made two attempts (on 13 November and 5 December) to hold an extraordinary shareholder's meeting, with the aim of reselecting the ZAO's supervisory board, and removing an entry in the charter about the issue of new shares. The meeting on 13 November was banned by the regional court.<BR>Meanwhile, LFZ General Director Yevgeny Barkov is preventing the foreign shareholders from entering the factory, but supports Moscow company Vangvard, one of whose employees is assault victim Yury Pankov. Vangvard also intends to become an LFZ shareholder.<BR>Natalia Salangina, director of legal agency SIBI (Tomsk), considers the attack to be an attempt "to come to an agreement with the factory shareholders, but excluding Stoomhamer and Asgary." On the evening of 4 December, claims Natalia Salangina, she and Yury Pankov had arranged to meet representatives of KKR and TUSRIF. She says that a meeting was held on 2 December with fund employees Dmitry Platonov (KKR) and Aleksei Markov (TUSRIF). Salangina claims that one issue discussed at these talks was the details of the American funds buying shares from Stoomhamer Group and Maxwell Asgary.<BR>"It was exactly on this day that it became clear that the shareholders' meeting would not go ahead," says Salangina of the day of the assault, 4 December. The extraordinary LFZ shareholders' meeting planned for 5 December did not take place; as on 13 December, voting was banned by the court.