ABSTRACT
Throughout the 1990s there were intense struggles in Russia's aluminium sector over the ownership of aluminium assets – a phenomenon described as the ‘aluminium wars’, reflecting the severity of the conflict. 1 The highly conflictual character of the industry and evidence of questionable governance practices discouraged foreign investment. Paul O'Neil, a former US commerce secretary and one-time chairman of Alcoa, the world's largest aluminium company at that time, in replying to a question about why Alcoa had not invested in Russia, said: ‘God bless anybody who wants to do it. How would you like to be in charge of a company whose economics were dependent on screwing the people? That's just crazy.’ 2
