“No State Is Above the Law”: Russia Loses $50 Billion Yukos Appeal

The Dutch Supreme Court has rejected Russia’s final appeal in a decades-long legal battle over the dismantling of the Yukos oil company, confirming a $50 billion arbitration award to its former shareholders, Associated Press (AP) reported on October 17.

The ruling ends years of litigation over the Kremlin’s 2003 seizure of Yukos, which international arbitrators found was politically motivated and aimed at silencing the company’s CEO, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a vocal critic of Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

The court described its decision as “a definitive end” to the case.

In 2003, Khodorkovsky was detained at gunpoint and later spent over ten years behind bars, while Yukos’s key assets were transferred to a state-run company before the firm was ultimately driven into bankruptcy, AP stated.

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Tim Osborne, head of GML—the holding firm representing Yukos shareholders—called the judgment a “historic victory,” saying it reaffirmed that “no state, not even a rogue state like Russia, is above the law,” AP wrote.

He added that GML will now pursue enforcement of the award, which has risen to over $65 billion with interest, by targeting Russian state assets worldwide.

Previously, it was reported that the European Union was preparing to lift sanctions on assets linked to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, enabling Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) to recover a $2.3 billion fine paid to Russia, Financial Times reported.

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