Miller, 52, and Sechin, 53, both worked for Putin in the St. Petersburg mayor’s office in the 1990s. Miller, CEO since 2001, declined to comment on the possibility of his inclusion on the blacklist, according to Kupriyanov. Sechin, a former deputy premier who’s overseen Rosneft since 2004 as chairman, then CEO, denounced all Western “threats and blackmail,” according to an e-mailed comment.
“As far as the loyal elite is concerned, sanctions have always led to a consolidation of forces to counter pressure from outside,” said Sechin, who spearheaded Rosneft’s takeover of Yukos Oil Co. to become Russia’s largest crude producer after the 2003 jailing of Yukos owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Excluding Miller and Sechin leaves “headroom for additional sanctions,” said Cliff Kupchan, an analyst at Eurasia Group in New York. So far, the U.S. sanctions have been “targeted,” unlike the sweeping penalties against Iran over its nuclear program that are designed to sever “vast swathes of the economy” from the West, Kupchan said in a research note.
FBI Probe
The U.S. law, if passed by both houses of Congress and signed by Obama, would authorize the president to impose sanctions against Russian officials or their associates or family members involved in the “expropriation of private or public assets for personal gain, corruption related to government contracts or the extraction of natural resources, bribery, or the facilitation or transfer of the proceeds of corruption to foreign jurisdictions.”
Firtash, worth $2.3 billion according to Kiev-based Korrespondent magazine, was arrested March 14 on suspicion of bribery and criminal conspiracy, according to an Austrian police statement. The charges are the result of several years of investigation by the FBI and aren’t “related to recent events in Ukraine,” the U.S. Department of Justice said.
Firtash, who owns titanium assets in Crimea, paid a record 125 million-euro ($172 million) bail on March 20 to win release during extradition hearings. He criticized his arrest as a “purely political” act.
Boeing, India
The case involves allegations of bribes paid by a Swiss company controlled by Firtash, Bothli, to obtain licenses to mine titanium ore in Andhra Pradesh with a state-run Indian company and build plants to produce titanium sponge with Boeing Co. in India, according to two people familiar with the investigation who asked not to be identified.
Boeing agreed in 2006 to conduct a feasibility study into the project with Bothli and then decided not to pursue it, the Chicago-based company said in an e-mailed response to questions. Firtash’s point man for the project, Suren Gevorgyan, said Bothli never paid a bribe to get permits because India was eager to receive Boeing’s planned investment.