Ukraine Eclairs Modifies JKX Board Dismissal Request

Ukrainian oligarch-owned Eclairs has modified its request to dismiss the seven directors of eastern Europe-focused JKX and to replace them with Michael Bakunenko as sole director, it said in a London stock exchange notice May 12. UK company law requires a firm to have more than one director.

Eclairs, whose main owners are Privatbank founders Igor Kolomoisky and Gennady Bogolyubov, said May 12 it will withdraw the resolutions to remove Paul Ostling, Vladimir Tatarchuk, Alan Bigman and Bernie Sucher as directors of the company, but confirming its requisition under section 338 of the Companies Act to appoint Michael Bakunenko as a director and remove Russell Hoare, Thomas Reed and Vladimir Rusinov as directors.

Both Bigman and Sucher were anyway at the end of their terms and so up for re-election. Ostling (pictured, below) however will remain; he worked at E&Y for 30 years, including as its global chief operating officer from 2003 to 2007, helping build up its presence in Ukraine, Russia and eastern Europe.

(Credit: JKX)

On 5 May 2017 Eclairs requested that ordinary resolutions to remove the seven current directors from the board be proposed at the next Annual General Meeting, which has to happen by June 28. Resolutions must be circulated 28 days before that.

Eclairs and Proxima organised the cash-free takeover in January 2016, removing the previous board headed by Paul Davies and installing Reed as CEO. Reed acted to restore the technical side of the business, bringing in Schlumberger to start work next week on releasing gas from wells in the Rudenkovskoye field in Ukraine. He also spoke of ambitions to produce much more gas, if the taxation regime were more stable and predictable.

The company's offices in Ukraine have been repeatedly raided by the police, however, and it won only a very small victory against Kiev in The Hague arbitration court, compared with the sums of money it had hoped for.

William Powell