Appeals Court upholds ruling in Azeri oil case

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. Appeals Court on Friday upheld a lower court's dismissal of government charges against a man accused of scheming with others to gain control of the state-run Azerbaijan oil company.

The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York had appealed the June 2007 dismissal, which was made by a U.S. District Court Judge on grounds the government filed the indictment too late.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit said the government was required "to apply for a suspension of the running of the statute of limitations before the limitations period expires. We therefore affirm."

Prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan said in a statement that they were "reviewing the court's opinion and considering our options."

Defendant Frederic Bourke was indicted on May 12, 2005, on charges of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, conspiracy, money laundering and lying to FBI agents.

In June last year, U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin in Manhattan wrote that most of the conduct charged in the indictment occurred between March and July 1998 and that the five-year statute of limitations for those offenses would have run out sometime between March and July 2003.

The government charged Bourke and two other men with a scheme to bribe senior government officials in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan in an attempt to ensure the privatization of the state oil company and to guarantee that Bourke profited from the privatization.

Bourke was described as the principal shareholder in Blueport International Ltd, which was accused of investing in a company involved in the scheme.

The other men -- Czech investor Viktor Kozeny and David Pinkerton, managing director of AIG Global Investment, a subsidiary of American International Group Inc -- were not part of the appeal.

A lawyer for Bourke could not be reached for comment on Friday's ruling.

In July last year, the government said it had agreed not to prosecute Omega Advisors Inc, a $6 billion hedge fund, over its role in the alleged scheme.

(Reporting by Grant McCool; Editing by Brian Moss, Gary Hill)