Russia's Federal Property Fund said Friday it will go ahead with an auction of the embattled Yukos oil giant's major unit Yuganskneftegaz despite a US court decision to halt the sale, the Itar-Tass news agency reported.

"We are a specialized state agency and act according to Russian law," spokesman of the agency Alexander Komarov said.

"We are selling Yugansk by order of a bailiff and so far we haven't received any order to cancel the auction. Therefore, we are still planning to continue," the spokesman said.

Under the US court decision, the auction should be held off for 10 days. A Moscow court source had said that the decision would have no legal consequence in Russia.

"Russia does not have any accords with the United States that would allow one side even theoretically to influence such processes on the territory of the other," said an unnamed high-ranking official with the Moscow Arbitration Court, which is judging a number of cases concerning Yukos.

The auction was ordered by the Russian authorities in July after the heavily indebted oil giant failed to pay 99.4 billion rubles (about 3.6 billion US dollars) in unpaid tax for the year 2000 and other fees.

Many critics see the judicial investigation of Yukos as a Kremlin-inspired onslaught against Yukos, which had sponsored political opponents against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Russian leadership denies the allegation, saying that the case was part of the country's anti-corruption campaign.

Source: Xinhua