Special forces raid BP's Moscow office

The raid came a day after BP suffered the humiliation of being usurped by ExxonMobil in aused stone crushing equipment for sale landmark alliance with the Kremlin-controlled Rosneft, a deal that BP had claimed as its own.

Police armed with assault rifles searched for documents relating to the dispute between BP and a minority shareholder in its Russian joint venture TNK-BP. The shareholder, Andrei Prokhorov, claims that BP harmed TNK-BP's interests by failing to include the joint venture in its proposed alliance with Rosneft and is seeking $US3 billion in damages as a result. Jeremy Huck, the head of BP in Russia, condemned the raid by about 20 people as illegal and an attempt to put "pressure on BP's operations" in the country. Work at the office had been "paralysed" and he had been told that enforcement agents could...