Friends" feud adds to boardroom woes of Urals Energy A legal feud between two childhood friends is adding to the woes of Urals Energy, the Aim-quoted oil group that faces the threat of a boardroom clear-out in January. Vyatcheslav Rovneiko, one of the group's founders, is pressing claims that he is owed nearly $42m by the oil producer and refiner at the end of this year. His claim centres on a deal for eastern Siberian assets, which he backed by pledging his shareholding in Urals Energy. When the deal went wrong in the wake of the financial crisis, the bank involved foreclosed on Mr Rovneiko's pledged stock - wiping out most of the value of his investment in Urals. But Mr Rovneiko now says he has a written agreement from Alexei Maximov, Urals chief executive, that he would be compensated by the company for his loss in the deal. According to Urals Energy, company executives did not know about this repayment agreement until September, when shareholders controlling almost 31 per cent of the group attempted call an extraordinary meeting to elect a new board. The company has described a faxed copy of the alleged agreement as "a forgery and an attempt by a third party to defraud the company and, by extension, its shareholders." However, Mr Rovneiko insists the agreement is genuine and, when it was struck in 2010, it gave giving Urals Energy three years in which to repay him the $42m he lost. Last year, Urals Energy brought a successful court action against Mr Rovneiko to recover $3.7m in loans that it had made to him. In this latest dispute, Mr Rovneiko has pointed out that he was friends with Mr Maximov, Urals chief executive, at school and university before becoming his business partner. Mr Maximov is one of the directors whom the dissatisfied shareholders hope to remove from the board at an extraordinary general meeting next month. The others are Andrew Shrager, chairman; Leonid Dyachenko and Aleksey Ogarev, both executive directors; and non-executives Ingeborg Srenger and Stephen Buscher. Maxim Barsky, former deputy chief executive and heir apparent of defunct Russian oil group TNK-BP, has emerged as the figurehead for the investors who are seeking to oust the directors. But their cause has been weakened by two changes to the shareholder list. Alpcot Capital Management, one of two dissident shareholders in the company, sold a 13 per cent stake in the company earlier this month. Last week, Urals said that Adler Impex, which is controlled by a Russian banker, had bought a 25 per cent stake and fully supported the existing management team. At the same time, Mr Shrager confirmed the lapse of an approach in October from an unnamed bidder, which valued the shares at 12.5p. Fire East Corporation, which owns 18 per cent of the group, still supports attempts to oust management. Shares in Urals closed on Friday at just under 6p, at little more than half their peak after the approach had been disclosed, giving the company a market value of £15m.