Amsterdam Court of Appeals rules that Russia must pay former Yukos shareholders

The Amsterdam Court of Appeals has rejected the last Russian objections in a case regarding the Russian oil group Yukos that has been ongoing for years. Russia must pay the former shareholders of the group a compensation of over 50 billion dollars, as was decided in the arbitration case in The Hague in 2014.

Moscow fought the decision to the highest courts with mixed success. In 2021, the Supreme Court referred the case back to a lower court. In a last-ditch effort, Moscow accused the former shareholders of fraud during the arbitration. The Amsterdam Court of Appeal rejected this accusation.

Yukos was one of the biggest oil and gas companies in Russia. The company was nationalized at the start of the century after the arrest and conviction of owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was imprisoned on accusations of fraud and large-scale tax evasion offenses.

The company was sold off to competitors in parts after the nationalization. The former shareholders were left empty-handed.

The Russian government was ordered to pay 50 billion dollars to three large shareholders in an arbitrary case in The Hague in 2014. Russia overturned that decision at the court in The Hague, but the affected shareholders were vindicated on appeal.

The ex-shareholders said they were happy with the decision. "We will now focus our full attention on the ongoing procedures to seize Russian state assets in the Netherlands, England, and America, and we do not rule out that we will also initiate seizure procedures in other countries."

The battle for the Russian billions is not over yet. It is expected that legal proceedings will have to take place all over the world in order to obtain Russian assets for years to come.