Abramovich’s close associate misled UK court in £1bn oil-fields case, documents suggest

Abramovich won the case on a number of fronts, including that Yugraneft’s case had been an abuse of process.

However, Panorama has uncovered new evidence suggesting the court was misled, in a joint investigation with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, external.

The evidence is contained in a leak of documents about Abramovich’s finances and the operations of a network of offshore companies administered from Cyprus between 1995 and 2022. It raises serious questions about the integrity of some of the oligarch’s professional advisers.

We have already found that the world’s biggest accountancy firm, Deloitte, helped in falsifying documents to hide his wealth and evade tax.

The BBC and media partners including the Guardian, Paper Trail Media, the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and the Cyprus Investigative Reporting Network – as well the Bureau of Investigative Journalism – have been reporting on the leaked files since 2023 as part of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ Cyprus Confidential investigation, external.

In the High Court, lawyers for Yugraneft argued the case should be heard in London, and that Tenenbaum, who was based there at the time, must have been aware of the dilution of Yugraneft’s interest.

But Tenenbaum denied this and told the court “he only became aware of Sibneft-Yugra in Spring 2004”.

He also testified he had “searched” his “files, emails and documents from 2002 to 2004” and had in his “possession no records or documents or other communications that relate to Sibneft-Yugra”.

But the leaked documents suggest he misled the court.

They show that in October 2003, months before Tenenbaum said he first became aware of Sibneft-Yugra, he had authorised Abramovich’s purchase of shares in the joint venture.

Two months later, Tenenbaum authorised another financial deal related to Sibneft-Yugra.

Andrew Mitchell KC, an expert in financial services law, told Panorama that it would be “very serious” if Tenenbaum’s 2008 evidence was false and that it could “range from being perjury, to an attempt to pervert the course of justice, to being a contempt of the court”.

Tenenbaum’s lawyers told us “he gave his evidence honestly and in good faith” and that he “cannot recall the context or detail of documents” more than 20 years old.