MOSCOW, March 2 - RAPSI, Sergei Feklyunin. The Eighth Commercial Court of Appeals upheld the lower court dismissal of a lawsuit filed by TNK-BP minority shareholder Andrei Prokhorov against BP Russian Investments Limited and BP p.l.c. seeking to recover $14 billion in losses, the court told the Russian Legal Information Agency (RAPSI/rapsinews.ru) on Friday.

The court dismissed Prokhorov's appeal of the trial court decision.

The Tyumen Regional Commercial Court held against his lawsuit against BP Russian Investments Limited и BP p.l.c on November 11, 2011.

ВР's lawyer Konstantin Lukoyanov told RAPSI/rapsinews.ru that the appellate court's judgment is "logical and reasonable."

"The lawsuit is absurd and unfounded by default as TNK-BP could not and did not sustain any losses. The suit had nothing to do with protecting legal interest of TNK-BP or its shareholders," Lukoyanov said.

RAPSI/rapsinews.ru has yet to obtain comments from the plaintiff.

The Tyumen Regional Commercial Court dismissed on November 11 another $3 billion claim filed by Prokhanov and other TNK-BP minority shareholders against TNK-BP board members Peter A. Charow and Richard S. Sloan. The appellate court upheld the judgment on January 26.

Prokhorov has been trying to recover about $17.25 billion from BP and its board members since last August.

The BP entered into a share swap agreement with Rosneft, Russian oil industry leader. The companies also agreed cooperate in developing Russia's Arctic shelf in January.

However, the AAR Consortium, representing the Russian TNK-BP shareholders, blocked the execution of the agreement. Negotiations were further terminated in June.

Prokhorov believes that if TNK-BP had become a member of the strategic partnership under the share 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.

Thus, the company lost a profit equal to the difference between the current fair price of the shares and the price at which TNK-BP would have acquired them, he said.

BP Russian Investments Limited and BP p.l.c. maintain the claims are ungrounded as no loss was sustained. Besides, TNK-BP could never be a member of a strategic partnership for the Arctic shelf development due to "the lack of the required competence," according to the statement made by Rosneft.

The lawsuit against the board members amounted to 87.112 billion rubles ($2.97 billion) and 409,284 billion rubles ($13.96 billion).