Partially newsworthy, partially an update Options

[kcroxyoursox]

I don't know how many of you know that I am doing an internship at de La Garza Public Relations this summer in Houston. One of our clients is Bob Amsterdam, a Canadian lawyer. Bob represents a man named Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

From wikipedia:

Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky (Михаи́л Бори́сович Ходорко́вский born June 26, 1963) is a former Komsomol activist who became one of Russia's most powerful oligarchs. He was later convicted for fraud and tax evasion and received a 9-year sentence. As of 2004, Khodorkovsky was the wealthiest man in Russia, and was the 16th wealthiest man in the world, although much of his wealth evaporated due to the collapse in the value of his holding in the Russian petroleum company YUKOS. At the time of his arrest, he was considered the most powerful of the Russian business oligarchs.

On October 25, 2003, Khodorkovsky was arrested at Novosibirsk airport by the Russian prosecutor general's office on charges of tax evasion. Shortly thereafter, on October 31, the government under Vladimir Putin further took the unprecedented step of freezing shares of Yukos due to tax charges. The Russian Government took further actions against Yukos, leading to a collapse in the share price. It purported to sell a major asset of Yukos in December 2004. Khodorkovsky's supporters argue that Putin's actions against him are retaliation for Khodorkovsky's support of political groups that oppose the government's policies, while opponents believe that he was correctly convicted for his criminal actions related to the privatization of state assets during the 1990s.

On May 31, 2005, Khodorkovsky was sentenced to nine years in prison. A wide variety of international journalists, politicians, and businessmen--both in Russia and internationally--consider this process to be largely political. Many dispute the correctness of investigations and court proceedings.

In October 2005 he was moved into prison camp number 13 in the city of Krasnokamensk, Chita Oblast.

In March 2006, Forbes Magazine surmised that Khodorkovsky's personal fortune had declined to a fraction of its former level, stating that he "still has somewhere below $500m"

I thought it was interesting, and one of my jobs here at the firm this summer is to monitor the news to see what kind of developments happen with this story, his company Yukos, and the Russian oil industry. As I hear things, I'll post them, if anyone is interested. I think it's really neat, almost like a movie script. But then again, you can't write drama this good!