Yukos shareholders declare a hunt for foreign property of Russia

Former Yukos shareholders after winning the court of appeal in The Hague intend to seek the seizure of Russian property abroad, Forbes Leonid Nevzlin said. According to him, Russia's attempts to challenge the arrests will only lead to a drag on time.
20.02.2020
Forbes
Origin source
“Our goal is to recover the property and funds of Russia in other countries. The decision of the Hague Tribunal allows this to be done, ”Leonid Nevzlin, a former shareholder of Yukos, told Forbes. According to him, in some countries it remains to “verify the applicability of the decision of the Hague court”, but in others it will be easy to seek arrest.

“If the decision is applicable, you can go into the country and seize assets and cash,” he said. In his opinion, Russia's attempts to appeal against the decisions in each country are likely to lead only to “time wasting”. “But there are a lot of property and funds belonging to Russia in the West, including America,” he said.

On Tuesday, The Hague Court of Appeal ordered Russia to pay $ 50 billion in a lawsuit by former Yukos shareholders. Ex-head of the oil company, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, responded to the decision, saying that the court "lost the Kremlin, not Russia." GML filed a lawsuit against Russia, representing Nevzlin, Vladimir Dubov F 190 and other former shareholders of Yukos, but not Khodorkovsky - he sold GML his stake in Yukos in 2005.

The Hague court obliges Russia to pay $ 50 billion in a lawsuit by former Yukos shareholders

The director of the International Center for Legal Protection, Andrei Kondakov, representing the interests of Russia in this case, emphasized that the defense would appeal the decision in the Supreme Court of the Netherlands. The Russian Ministry of Justice indicated that the decision was not in line with the position of the European Court of Human Rights.

International arbitration in The Hague sided with former Yukos shareholders and ordered Russia to pay $ 50 billion back in 2014. The arbitration then indicated that in the Yukos affair Russia violated the Energy Charter and de facto expropriated the oil company from its rightful owners. However, Russia challenged the decision, and in 2016 it was canceled by the Hague District Court. He ruled that international arbitration did not have jurisdiction to resolve the dispute, since Russia had not ratified the multilateral Energy Charter Treaty. After that, the former Yukos shareholders appealed to the Hague Court of Appeal with a request to cancel the new decision. As explained by Kondakov, the court did not agree with the argument of non-compliance with jurisdiction.

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