Kommersant follows the 31-year-old ex-taxman’s career

On Wednesday 27 August Prime Minister Putin confirmed the new membership of the government’s commission for the Fuel & Energy Complex. There are now only 28 members, instead of 45, since the regional governors who were hitherto represented there have been excluded. The permanent secretary of the commission is the former head of the tax service legal department Anton Ustinov: the 31-year-old now serves as aide to commission head Igor Sechin.

The text of the Order issued by the premier on 25 August confirmed deputy prime minister Igor Sechin as chairman of the commission and the energy minister Sergei Shmatko as his deputy. As well as representatives of the major ministries and government departments, the new-look commission includes the CEOs an representatives of Russia’s main oil, gas and transport companies. The governors are out and a lawyer, Anton Ustinov, who is a specialist in retrieving the tax debts of companies, now joins the commission.

From 2001 onwards Ustinov headed the legal department at the Federal Tax Service. In this capacity, the 31-year-old nephew of the former justice minister and Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov (sources within the presidential administration confirmed for our journalist the family link between the two men) was involved in the Yukos affair and headed the committee of the oil company’s creditors. Ustinov Jr’s team also took part in such dramatic, widely-reported cases as the demand for 3.9 billion roubles in unpaid taxes from TNK-BP and the nationalising of controlling blocks of shares in Russneft and six leading companies of the Bashkortostan fuel and energy complex by the State.

In February 2008 Mr Anton Ustinov’s career was unexpectedly interrupted. Due to reorganisation of the Tax Service, and a reduction in the number of its constituent departments from 22 to 7, Ustinov lost his job as head of the legal department. Informed sources then suggested that he might be given a job with Rosneft but yesterday the company told Kommersant that Ustinov had not worked a single day for the oil major. In May 2008, on the other hand, he was appointed aide to first deputy premier Igor Sechin. As a specialist in corporate taxation he and Sechin worked to consolidate Russia’s shipbuilding assets into the Unified Shipbuilding Corporation. His latest appointment means that all documents with which the commission deals pass across Ustinov’s desk, since he is the permanent official or secretary of that body.

“The appointment of a lawyer specialising in corporate taxation to the Energy complex is perhaps linked to the already declared intentions of the government to reconsider its approach to the taxing of those exploiting natural resources,” Sergei Shapovalov, a partner in the Tax Assistance legal firm, told Kommersant. Currently, he reminded the interviewer, 96% of the mineral extraction tax received by the budget comes from the oil sector. Lawyers who know Anton Ustinov consider he will be dealing with more serious projects in the government, than drawing up amendments to current tax legislation. We may recall that the Energy commission was created by ex-premier Mikhail Fradkov as the chief coordinating centre for government intervention in the functioning of the oil industry.