2004, Gazprom submitted an application to participate in the auction via its wholly owned subsidiary, Gazpromneft. On 15 December 2004, Yukos filed for bankruptcy protection in a Houston court and obtained a temporary injunction prohibiting Gazprom from participating in the auction. On 16 December 2004, a group of Western banks withdrew their financial support for Gazprom's application. On the same day, Baikalfinansgrup, a previously unknown company, applied to participate in the auction. On 19 December 2004, only two companies appeared at the auction, Gazpromneft and Baikalfinansgrup. Gazpromneft declined to place any offer. Baikalfinansgrup acquired Yuganskneftegaz on its first bid. On 23 December 2004, Baikalfinansgrup was acquired by Rosneft. Rosneft later disclosed in its annual financial statement that it had financed the acquisition of Yuganskneftegaz. At the time, Sergey Bogdanchikov was the president of Rosneft and the chief executive officer of Gazpromneft. Shortly after the auction, the planned merger between Gazprom and Rosneft was abandoned, and Bogdanchikov resigned his post as chief executive officer of Gazpromneft. On 7 February 2006, in response to a question by a Spanish journalist, Vladimir Putin disclosed that Rosneft had used Baikalfinansgrup as a vehicle to acquire Yuganskneftegaz in order to protect itself against litigation. Antitrust On 22 April 2015, Gazprom was charged by the European Commission with using territorial restrictions to engage in anticompetitive behavior and using its dominant position to impose unfair prices. The company was accused of preventing competition in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia. The territorial restrictions prevented the import of gas at potentially more competitive prices. The restrictions also prevented gas from reaching areas of high demand and avoiding areas of excessive supply. Gazprom was also accused of compelling entities to consent to the now defunct South Stream pipeline by necessitating a consent clause in long term contracts. In 2018, Gazprom agreed to a settlement which involved dropping all contractual barriers to the free flow of gas in Central and Eastern European gas markets and to take various steps to improve economic cooperation. Customers would be given an explicit contractual right to trigger a price review when prices paid diverged from competitive price benchmarks, and be allowed more frequent and efficient price reviews. Gazprom agreed to not seek any damages from its Bulgarian partners following the termination of the South Stream project. Had the case gone to court, the company could have been forced to