Are all crimes, committed anywhere in the world, suddenly the jurisdiction of the US federal government? Because I’m scratching my head at this Reuters report and why DoJ is even involved:
MOSCOW, April 21 (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department’s organised crime division is investigating RosUkrEnergo AG, a company that supplies Russian and Central Asian natural gas to Ukraine, diplomatic and financial sources said on Friday.
Russian gas monopoly Gazprom (GAZP.MM: Quote, Profile, Research) owns half of RosUkrEnergo, whose opaque ownership structure has come under the spotlight at a time of growing fears in Europe over the security of energy supplies from Russia after Gazprom briefly cut supplies to Ukraine in January in a price dispute.
In Ukraine, RosUkrEnergo has been fiercely criticised, particularly by former Premier Yulia Tymoshenko, who denounces its role in a New Year deal that ended the gas row and sharply raised the price of Ukraine’s gas imports.
With liberal parties behind the 2004 “Orange Revolution” trying to rebuild their coalition and form a government after last month’s elections, Tymoshenko is pressing for her job back.
She once described RosUkrEnergo as a “criminal canker” and has vowed to rescind the New Year deal if returned to power.
The Wall Street Journal reported that representatives of Swiss-registered RosUkrEnergo and Raiffeisen Investment AG, a unit of Vienna-based Raiffeisen Bank AG that controls 50 percent of the company’s shares for undisclosed owners, recently met U.S. investigators in Washington.
The diplomatic and financial sources confirmed to Reuters that the meetings had taken place about two months ago and said there had been no follow-up since then from the U.S. side.
There is some concern with how transparent the ownership of the company is. Fine. But nowhere in this piece does it describe why a Swiss-Russian joint venture operating in Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine should invite the ire of the US Justice Department. Aside from the politics — supporting Ukraine’s color-coded revolution against the evil, undemocratic Russians — is there something I’m missing here?
10:42 am on April 21, 2006
