The Litvinenko Inquiry

The Litvinenko Inquiry
before, and Dr Shadrin’s evidence was that they may have had a meeting there prior
to going out to dinner at the Pescatori restaurant.
6.115 Dr Shadrin gave detailed oral evidence to the Inquiry about his relationship with
Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun and the various meetings that he had with them in
London during this period. 102 I also received oral evidence on this topic from several
of Dr Shadrin’s colleagues – Nikolay Gorokov, 103 Dariya Davison 104 and Vladimir
Voronoff. 105 The witness statement served by Mr Kovtun dated 2 June 2015 106
addresses the business dealings that he and Mr Lugovoy had with these individuals.
6.116 As I have indicated above, there is a good deal of uncontroversial evidence regarding
Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun’s dealings with CPL. In the course of his oral evidence,
Dr Shadrin explained in great detail how in 2005 CPL had obtained oil and gas
exploration licences over blocks of land in Western Siberia. The licences had been
purchased by raising funding in the London market. He went on to describe how the
exploitation of these licences was subsequently put at risk by the actions of a group
in Russia whom he variously described as ‘criminals’ and ‘raiders’.
6.117 In summary, Dr Shadrin’s evidence was that this group, which was apparently led
by a man named Mr Livshitz, attempted to cut CPL out of the exploration of the
blocks of land by forging rival licences and bribing government officials. According
to Dr Shadrin, CPL took two courses of action in response to this attack. The first
(which was Dr Shadrin’s preferred course) was to challenge the forged licences in
the Russian courts. The second, which Dr Shadrin said was insisted upon by the
investors and by the CPL Chairman Mr Balfour, was to investigate and to attempt to
put pressure on Mr Livshitz and his group. This led to the introduction of Mr Voronoff
to the company. He, in turn, suggested that Mr Lugovoy and his company Ninth Wave
should be instructed to assist. Mr Lugovoy appointed Mr Kovtun as Project Manager.
Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun were tasked with preparing a report on the Livshitz group.
6.118 This general outline appears to me to be an uncontentious summary of the evidence
of the various witnesses. What is of particular significance for present purposes is the
stage that these matters had reached by the autumn of 2006.
6.119 Dr Shadrin’s evidence was that the difficulties with the Livshitz group had been largely
resolved by the summer of 2006.
6.120 CPL had been successful in the domestic legal challenges that it pursued in Russia,
both before the Arbitrazh Court and then the Court of Appeal. Following the decision of
the Court of Appeal, the Ministry for Natural Resources had reissued CPL’s licences.
All this had taken place by June 2006. 107
6.121 With regard to CPL’s other line of attack, Dr Shadrin stated that Mr Lugovoy and
Mr Kovtun had prepared and submitted their report by the end of July 2006, prior to
which he had held two or three meetings with them in Moscow. He described their
report in the following terms:
102
Shadrin 14/137-218
103
Gorokov 13/142-155
104
Davison 14/114-136
105
Voronoff 14/2-114
106
INQ021208
107
Shadrin 14/152-153
134