Midland Resources is a Guernsey/Channel Islands corporation that acquired steel mills in Russia, the Ukraine and Macedonia as well as Armenia’s electrical grid and a variety of other businesses in meat, rubber, coper processing, real estate, shipping, among other enterprises.
Michael Shtaif, a Canadian citizen and the initiator of a Russian oil and gas venture that is the subject of the litigation, filed a counterclaim against Midland. Shtaif claimed that an agreement had been reached for a joint venture to develop the Russian oil and gas assets and that Midland was to have invested US$50 million for 67.21% of the joint venture.
Ultimately the joint venture was not financed, and the venture did not proceed.
In the Counterclaim, Shtaif was seeking $750 million against Midland claiming lost opportunity from a breach of contract arising from Midland’s failure to complete financing of the joint venture.
We were retained by Midland’s counsel to provide our opinion as to the value of the investment opportunity. We assessed the nature of the industry and the projected cash flows using a Discounted Cash Flow model. Although no liability was found, had an award been necessary the Court indicated a strong preference for our valuation analysis over the multiple experts that presented evidence on behalf of Shtaif.