MOSCOW, April 26 - RAPSI. A commercial court has partially satisfied BP's lawsuit to recover $92,000 in legal fees from TNK-BP minority shareholders who sued the company's BP-nominated board members.

The oil giant initially sought 22 million rubles ($751,000), which the shareholders' lawyer called "absurd." Liniya Prava Law Firm Partner Dmitry Chepurenko has determined that according to the claimed amount each hearing has allegedly cost BP 2.5 million rubles ($85,000).

"We are satisfied with the judgment in general," BP lawyer Konstantin Lukoyanov told the Russian Legal Information Agency (RAPSI/rapsinews.com). "The company's objective in the litigation was not quite to collect this or that amount, but rather to hold liable those who initiated the unfounded lawsuits for corporate blackmail."

He said the claimed legal fees have been supported by the requisite documents.

BP sought to recover the legal fees spent on the trial initiated by TNK-BP minority shareholder Andrei Prokhorov.

Prokhorov tried to collect $17.25 billion from BP and the BP-nominated board members in August 2011.

BP, one of six oil and gas "supermajors," and Rosneft, a leading Russian oil company, agreed to a share swap and the joint development of Russia's Arctic shelf in January 2011. However, the AAR Consortium, which represents the Russian TNK-BP shareholders, blocked the agreement's execution. The negotiations came to a close in June.

Prokhorov believes that if TNK-BP were a member of a strategic partnership between the two companies, then under the swap agreement it would have purchased about 1.01 billion common shares in Rosneft, which would have grown in value and brought profit to TNK-BP. Therefore, he maintained that the difference between the current fair price of the shares and the price at which TNK-BP would have acquired the stake in the swap constituted lost profit.

In the opinion of BP Russian Investments Limited and BP plc, the claims were groundless as no loss inflicting event existed.

TNK-BP could never have joined a strategic partnership for Arctic shelf development as Rosneft stated on numerous occasions that BP lacked the "required competence," BP asserted.