The government's loans-for-shares scheme found itself once again mired in controversy Tuesday, with one leading bank accusing another of cheating it out of an opportunity to bid for a major oil company, while a consortium of three commercial lenders also found its application for another top oil enterprise rejected by the auction organizer.


Bank Rossiisky Kredit charged Tuesday that its application to bid for a 51 percent stake in the Sidanko oil company had been rejected by Uneximbank, which was designated by the State Property Committee to collect applications for participation in the auction.


Separately, a $350 million bid for a 45 percent stake in the Yukos oil company, from a consortium of Rossiisky Kredit, Inkombank and Alfa-Bank, was turned down by designated organizer Bank Menatep because government securities were used as the deposit, news reports said.


Yukos is Russia's second-largest oil producer, after LUKoil, and Sidanko is third.


The Sidanko auction, with a $125 million starting price, is set for Thursday, and the deadline for bids was Monday evening. Uneximbank said it did not accept Rossiisky Kredit's bid because the latter had not paid the necessary deposit, Reuters reported Tuesday.


"It can't be viewed as anything else but an action directed toward the removal of a possible competitor," Rossiisky Kredit spokesman Oleg Misyuk said of Uneximbank's action.


The Yukos auction, meanwhile, is set for Dec. 8. Bank Menatep, the sale's organizer, refused to comment on its decision to turn down the application submitted by Inkombank, Alfa Bank and Rossiisky Kredit, Reuters reported Tuesday.


Bank Menatep, which is also bidding in the Yukos auction, has several times predicted that it will be the winner. The heads of the three banks last week accused Menatep of having unfair advantages in the Yukos sale, and threatened to dump T-bills to raise the $350 million deposit.


Inkombank vice president Alexei Kuznetsov said the three banks had deposited the $350 million payment for participation in the Yukos sale in a State Property Committee account, half of it in the form of T-bills, Interfax reported.


State Property Committee spokesman Igor Plotnikov said he knew nothing about the possibility of using government securities for deposits, and added that, according to the rules governing the loans-for-shares auctions, deposits must be placed in the Finance Ministry's account in the Central Bank, not in the State Property Committee's accounts, Reuters reported.


The Central Bank reported Nov. 30 that it was prepared to create a mechanism for using T-bills as a deposit, while the government's auction organizing committee has said that deposits can only be made in cash, according to the news agency.


In the case of the Sidanko auction, Misyuk of Rossiisky Kredit said that Uneximbank had violated two provisions of the regulations governing loans-for-shares auctions. One rule states that only the official government commission charged with carrying out the auctions may determine whether or not a deposit has been made in time, he said.


The other rule Uneximbank violated, he said, states that the State Property Committee's representative may not refuse to register a potential bidder's application.


In an statement issued earlier Tuesday, Rossiisky Kredit said its representatives had not been allowed into Uneximbank's building Monday.


For its part, Uneximbank said in a statement that it had registered applications for the Sidanko auction -- from bidders who "had transferred deposits on time" -- until 7:30 p.m. Monday. Rossiisky Kredit representatives had been allowed into the Uneximbank offices, the statement said.


Rossiisky Kredit's president Vitaly Malkin phoned First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais on Monday about the situation, according to the Rossiisky Kredit statement.


Uneximbank said last week that bids for the Sidanko stake had been received from Uneximbank itself, from Alfa-Bank and from a group of Russian banks, Reuters reported.


Rossiisky Kredit's Misyuk said his bank Wednesday appealed to the government's auction commission to register its application for the Sidanko auction.


Uneximbank both organized and won a Nov. 17 auction for 38 percent of Norilsk Nickel. Rossiisky Kredit, which bid more than twice, was disqualified on the grounds that it did not have adequate guarantees.