Rather than let the bank fall into foreign hands, however, the government cancelled the tender and sold it to a local Polish consortium for a knock-down price.
Boris Berezovsky claimed he held a sizeable stake in the younger oligarch's oil and aluminium companies, and was bullied into selling those shares at a knock-down price after Roman Abramovich threatened that the Kremlin - with which Mr Berezovsky had fallen out - would seize them.