The aggressor country had to pay the record amount of the arbitration award, which is now almost $60 billion without interest.
The Amsterdam Court of Appeal rejected Russia’s complaint and sided with the former shareholders of the Yukos oil company. The decision to pay Moscow $50 billion remains in effect, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, February 20.
The case against Russia was initiated in 2005 by the three largest shareholders of Yukos – Veteran Petroleum Ltd, Yukos Universal Ltd and Hulley Enterprises Ltd.
Shareholders cited Russia’s imposition of politically motivated tax burdens on Russia’s largest oil company at the time, leading to its bankruptcy and foreclosure of state-owned Rosneft assets.
The court in The Hague ruled in favor of the shareholders and ordered Russia to pay the largest arbitration amount in history – $50 billion in compensation – in 2014. The Russian Federation tried to challenge the arbitration decision and cancel it.
The decision was partially overturned in 2021 by the Dutch High Court, which asked a lower court to reconsider one of the grounds of the case.
The Dutch High Court then ruled that the Hague court had wrongly ignored Russia’s argument that the shareholders had likely committed fraud in the arbitration proceedings.
In the end, Russia failed to overturn a court ruling in The Hague, which would have forced it to pay more than $50 billion to former Yukos shareholders.
In February of this year, Yukos’ former shareholders achieved their first victory in seizing Russian assets. They received a foreclosure order for a vacant lot in the expensive Kensington area of London. This site was acquired by Russia for £8 million in 2006.
Last November, a British judge denied Russia immunity in the case bought by Yukos shareholders and decided that the state must answer in court why it did not pay the record amount of the arbitration award, which is now in about $60 billion before interest. .
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2003 – arrest of Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky
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2005 – shareholders initiate arbitration proceedings
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2013 – Khodorkovsky is pardoned and released from prison
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2014 – a tribunal in the Netherlands rules that Russia must pay $50 billion
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2015 – shareholders begin enforcement proceedings in the UK
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2016 – Dutch court annuls arbitration awards
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2016 – A British court suspended the case
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2020 – The Hague Court of Appeal reinstates the arbitral award
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2021 – The High Court of the Netherlands revokes Yukos’ preliminary bankruptcy conclusion
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2022 – A British court allows shareholders to reopen the case in the UK
After a Dutch arbitration court ordered Russia to pay losses in 2014, former Yukos shareholders tried to seize assets in countries such as France, Belgium, the United States, the Netherlands and India. In Belgium and France, fixed state assets were released following Russian protests.
The media also reported that the Luxembourg court, following the claim of ex-YUKOS shareholders, acquired shares from the portfolio of the Russian state corporation Rusnano – the OCSiAl company, whose value is estimated at $2 billion.
Source: korrespondent
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.