Cadogan Petroleum, the oil explorer with two fields in Ukraine, returned from suspension yesterday and lost 45¼p to 102¼p as it revealed that a local commercial court had effectively ruled that its title to the two fields was not valid.

Cadogan, which floated only a month ago at 230p, said that it would begin proceedings to challenge the court ruling and it did not believe that there were reasonable grounds to contest its right.

A committee of business advisers to Julia Timoshenko, Prime Minister of Ukraine, has said that it will ask her for a directive to sort out the mess.

But Richard Savage, an analyst with Mirabaud Securities, said: “The company expects the process will take no more than a few weeks and they appear confident of a successful outcome. However, given our experience of the Ukrainian courts system, we would not be surprised if it took longer to sort the issue out.”

When Regal Petroleum’s rights to fields in Ukraine were legally challenged two years ago it ended up selling a 10 per cent stake in its assets there to Alberry, an offshore registered company. Regal lost 12¾p to 163p and even the FTSE 250 company JKX Oil & Gas, whose principal oil-fields are in Ukraine, fell 36½p to 372p.

Spice, the installer of meters for utilities which was spun out of Yorkshire Electricity, fell 5p to 529p ahead of a move from AIM to the full list today. It was dragged down by a profit warning from Fountains, down 28p to 80p, which reads meters and keeps vegetation off power lines. It said that customers were cutting back on spending.

The Family Shari’ah Fund, the first Sharia-compliant fund to invest in a mixed range of assets, will start trading on AIM tomorrow at $1.

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