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Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque London :

Last week, activist hedge fund Weiss Asset Management sold its 29.12% stake in British oil and gas firm Cadogan Petroleum Plc to Italian firm Shon Invest SA, which reportedly agreed with Cadogan's strategy of developing Ukrainian oil and gas assets. The news in itself would be simple if it weren't for the saga that preceded it - and that is to potentially continue.

Fraudulent executives, gas licences disputes It all started when Cadogan Petroleum, an oil explorer with some exciting discoveries, launched an IPO in June 2008 with a market capitalisation of £530m ($764m) in London.

Energy consulting firm Gaffney Cline estimated that as at 31 January 2008, Cadogan had net best estimate contingent resources of 1,583 billion cubic feet of gas, 48 million barrels of condensate and 1.5 million barrels of oil. The group was also estimated to have significant prospective resources.

Later that year, the non-executive directors of Cadogan, having lost confidence in the management team, fired it and assumed operational control in March 2009, according to the CFA Institute. Ian Baron was named Interim CEO and asked to review the operations as well as evaluate the Company's commercial v......................

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