PwC also claimed they were lied to by audit client Yukos for ten years.
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Even the talks over a foreign purchase of Yukos were reportedly put only on temporary hold.
But Yukos shares slumped again when prosecutors said they had seized a 61% stake.
Mr. Putin likewise said that the government had no intention of letting Yukos go bankrupt.
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The most popular example: former Yukos oil boss Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man.
Platon Lebedev, one of Mr Khodorkovsky's main partners, was arrested, and probes into Yukos were launched.
An investment fund, Roxwell Holdings, launched a lawsuit alleging that Yukos had misled investors.
Yukos's chairman last week painted a doomsday scenario, warning that it may have to halt production.
Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky is currently in jail facing charges of fraud and tax evasion.
In 2003 Exxon considered buying a large stake in Yukos, then Russia's largest oil firm.
Menatep might also sell some shares in Yukos, so it can repay the firm's debts.
Menatep could easily pull the trigger by calling in its own loan to Yukos.
Overall, Yukos's finances, like those of most big Russian companies, are still a shambles.
Two big integrated oil firms, Yukos and Sibneft, said they were calling off a planned merger.
The Yukos case could come to the European Court of Human Rights this year.
Yukos and Sibneft hope to construct their new holding company within six to eight weeks.
Much of the pressure on Yukos has been coming from Kenneth Dart, an American private investor.
Nor is Yukos the only Russian oil company under the spotlight for allegedly failing to pay taxes.
In the first trial the defendants were convicted of avoiding taxes on the sale of Yukos's oil.
Nor, so far, have Yukos's troubles put off international oil companies from investing in Russia's energy sector.
Yukos points out that they are roughly equal to its annual revenues for the period in question.
Yukos, says James Fenkner at Troika Dialog, a Moscow investment bank, has a history of buying cheap.
The Kremlin may also have feared a mooted deal between Yukos and a big American oil company.
Meanwhile, oil prices rose and Yukos, which was pumping 2% of global output, saw its shares rocket.
But Mr Putin has always maintained he is simply trying to make Yukos pay its back tax bill.
One option - renationalisation - would reduce Yukos's efficiency, said Zarko Stefanovski, senior oil analyst at Aton brokerage.
Until recently Alexei Kudrin, Russia's reformist finance minister, had said that what Yukos did was immoral but legal.
Even Yukos now seems like a distant memory, with the main Russian exchange, the RTS, up 84% this year.
Lukoil has been trying to catch up with its smaller rival, Yukos, considered the country's most westernised oil company.
Though declaring Yukos bankrupt could take months, its effective demise could come sooner.
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