U.S. Sides Battle for Control of Top Hotel

A multimillion dollar battle between two American factions seeking to control the Radisson Slavjanskaya Hotel broke out in the open Monday in the aftermath of a police raid on the four-star hotel.Paul Tatum, the president of Americom Business Centers and one of the founding partners of the hotel, accused the Slavjanskaya management Monday of illegally barring him from the building, stealing his shares and hiding $8 million in profits abroad. The management in turn accused Tatum of cutting off the general director's phone lines, denying him access to bank accounts and trying to break into the director's office.The charges and countercharges followed a special police raid Friday in which 10 alleged gangsters were detained at gunpoint in the lobby. Police arrested two of the suspects over the weekend and discharged the others.Tatum told an improvised press conference in the hotel driveway: "There has been a putsch." He protested the hotel's ban on his entry, saying the "order was illegal."Vladimir Draitser, the hotel's general director, said he had ordered the guards to prevent Tatum from entering the hotel on Saturday to stop him from interfering with hotel management. The clash brings a long-running feud into the open that has the two U.S. partners in the Russian-American joint venture, Americom and Radisson Moscow Corp., fighting both in U.S. courts and in Moscow for control of the hotel. The Russian partner, Mosintour Co., which controls 50 percent of the venture, has sided with Radisson against Tatum. Unlike the other squabbling partners, Mosintour officials could not be reached for comment Monday.The battle, while unusual in its publicity and bitterness, is similar to fights in other joint ventures that have run aground in Russia's swamp of chaotic privatization, property and labor regulations."The real issue is control," Tatum said. "This is a cherry. This is a big money-making property."The hotel had a different appearance, however, on Friday when a crack team of the Moscow police rushed into the main bar armed with machine guns.Tatum accused Draitser of organizing the raid. "Draitser was having, in our opinion, restless feelings about his authority, and he called in" the police "to show that he was in power and in control and nobody was going to control the property but him."Draitser angrily denied the accusation. "I was shocked when I learned what was happening," he said. "Why would I want to harm the image of my own enterprise?"Tatum said all 10 suspects had been released. But Igor Tsyrulnikov, a police spokesman, said two had been arrested. He identified one of the men as M. Kadirov, 27, the alleged leader of a Chechen gang and wanted for theft and extortion. The other, only identified as Kh. Khalidov, 26, was wanted for car theft, Tsyrulnikov said. He declined to say who had called in police.The hotel building and property are state-owned but a joint venture in 1991 obtained the rights to manage the hotel for 20 years in return for investing $6 million and using revenues to finish construction and turn it into one of Moscow's first Western-style hotel and office complexes. Both Draitser, a Russian-born American citizen, and Tatum agree that the conflict came to a head May 30 when Tatum moved against Draitser. Tatum said Draitser was incompetent, had cost the joint venture $7 million in lost profits and should leave his office because his contract as general manager had expired May 29. If he were allowed to continue working without a contract, Tatum said, Draitser could use Russian law to claim he had an indefinite contract.Draitser said he was general director until the board of directors decide otherwise and showed letters of support from Radisson and Mosintour."I have to insure that the enterprise is working properly," Draitser said in explaining his ban on Tatum. Tatum also said Radisson had illegally obtained a majority share in the U.S. partner of the joint venture, RadAmer, using an illegal offshore bank account worth $8 million. Tom Polsky, a spokesman for Radisson Hotels International in its U.S. headquarters in Minneapolis, said that the Radisson had boosted its share from 20 to 54 percent in RadAmer, leaving Americom with 46 percent, reflecting the changed investment of each of the partners since inception of the project. Draitser said the joint venture did not have any offshore bank accounts.