MOSCOW, June 21 (RIA Novosti) - Steven Theede, the Yukos [RTS: YUKO] chief executive and president, is not intending to resign from his post, the oil company board's chairman said Wednesday.
"As far as I know he is not planning to resign," Viktor Gerashchenko said, though he added that it was hard to run the business from London.
U.S. national Theede, 54, joined the Russian company in 2003 as executive director and president of a Yukos-Moscow subsidiary. The following year, he took over as Yukos chief executive from Simon Kukes, a Russian-born U.S. citizen.
In April this year, Yukos shareholder Valery Barmin filed an appeal to Moscow's Court of Arbitration against Theede's appointment as the company's chief executive, arguing that it was unlawful to put a foreign national in charge of a domestic company.
Barmin also requested that the Federal Migration Service and the Federal Security Service check whether the appointment had been made with due respect for all procedural formalities.
Yukos lawyers maintain the current chief executive was appointed in full compliance with the corporate charter.
The court is scheduled to hear the appeal July 6.
Yukos founder and former chief executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky has been serving an eight-year prison sentence since a May 2005 conviction on fraud and tax evasion charges.
Following the arrest of Khodorkovsky in October 2003, authorities ordered the sale of some of the company's prize assets to settle its massive tax bills.
Many Yukos executives have set up their base in London fearing they might face legal difficulties if they returned to Russia.
