An arbitration court in Siberia ruled Friday that British oil giant BP should pay $3.1 billion in compensation to its Russian joint venture TNK-BP over a failed attempt to form an alliance with Russian state-controlled oil company Rosneft.
BP's spokesman in Russia, Vladimir Buyanov told The Associated Press that it considers the ruling by the Tyumen Region Arbitration Court unfair and will appeal it.
The verdict came in response to a lawsuit launched last year by Andrei Prokhorov, a minority shareholder of TNK-BP.
The multibillion-dollar Arctic deal between BP and Rosneft collapsed last year after Russian TNK-BP shareholders contested it. They claimed that BP was breaking TNK-BP's shareholder agreement by entering into a deal without the venture's knowledge or consent.
