IPOC’s latest attempt to have its claim to a $1.5 billion stake in Russian telecoms company MegaFon ratified through court actions around the world has ended in another disappointment.

The Bermuda-registered company has previously claimed it was targeted by an alleged James Bond-style corporate espionage mission in Bermuda.

Las month it lost its appeal to take its legal fight through Russian court rooms. Yesterday, a Stockholm arbitration tribunal refused to order CT-Mobile to sell or transfer the disputed stake in MegaFon, Russia’s third largest cell phone company.

In a statement, IPOC said the refusal had been based on a “highly-technical interpretation of Swedish and Russian corporate law.”

IPOC has been registered in Bermuda since 2000 but is currently facing a winding-up order made by Finance Minister Paula Cox that is due to be concluded in the coming weeks.

In an ongoing legal action involving IPOC in the US, the company has claimed its financial details and company secrets were plundered by fake US and UK secret agents sent to Bermuda to secure confidential documents from the offices of audit firm KPMG in Par-la-Ville Road.

IPOC has stated in US court documents it believes a rival Russian company called Alfa Group was behind the spying mission designed to nullify its claim to a 25 percent stake in MegaFon. That case is ongoing.

There have been various legal skirmishes since 2003 into the dispute.

IPOC’s claim to the MegaFon stake dates back to 2001 when it made an agreement with CT-Mobile (CTM) a Russian company that owned a 25.1 percent stake in MegaFon. IPOC also entered into two agreements with British Virgin Island-incorporated LV Finance Group which purportedly gave it the right to purchase from it the shares of Bahamas company Transcontinental Mobile Investment, which was said to own the CTM shares.

But IPOC’s attempt to exercise its claimed rights to become the indirect owner of the MegaFon shares through CTM did not happen as LV Finance sold its Transcontinental Mobile Investment shares to companies belonging to the Russian Alfa Group.

The legal cases, which have been held in a number of jurisdictions, started in the summer of 2003 and reached arbitration proceedings in Switzerland and Sweden as IPOC tried to wrestle control of the MegaFon shares it believes are rightfully its own.

On Monday a three-member Stockholm arbitration tribunal ruled in favour of CTM, agreeing that IPOC’s argument of an alleged breach of the shareholders’ agreement was without legal binding.

In a statement IPOC said it was disappointed by the ruling, which it said was made: “Despite the tribunal’s finding that CTM, under Alfa Group control, is and remains a ‘situation of indirect competition’ in contravention of the shareholders’ agreement, due to its ownership stake in mobile telephone operator Vimpelcom.

“The tribunal also refused to invalidate the shareholders’ agreement itself as requested by CTM, and the agreement thus remains intact and enforceable.”

In a statement CT-Mobile said the tribunal had dismissed IPOC’s claim that it had breached any provision of the agreement and the decision was now the sixth court case since January 2006 that had ended in defeat for IPOC.

The company noted: “Almost four years since commencing proceedings, IPOC has failed to establish a claim to the MegaFon stake before any court or tribunal anywhere in the world.”

An IPOC spokesperson said: “This is a temporary setback in our ongoing fight against Alfa to recover our 25.1 percent stake in MegaFon, but strengthens our resolve to continue our legal challenge.”