© Sputnik / Alexey Maishev; AFP / ALEXANDER NEMENOV
The Ministry of Justice in Moscow has welcomed a decision by a US court to freeze proceedings in the case over Yukos, with the world's largest legal settlement now left dangling. The former oil giant was declared bankrupt in 2006.
In a statement to reporters, officials said that
the court had agreed with Russian lawyers that a parallel case in the Netherlands meant litigation in the US would be "a fruitless exercise." The legal battle between the country and Yukos' ex-shareholders has dragged on for close to 15 years after the collapse of the company. Dutch judges had previously awarded them around $50 billion in damages, but that decision is now being appealed in one of the country's top courts.
Yukos was acquired from the Russian state by the oligarch-controlled Bank Menatep, during the controversial "loans for shares" auctions of the mid 1990s, and for a fraction of its real value. The oligarchs were immensely wealthy Russian businessmen with powerful political connections, who held dominant positions in business and politics, particularly under the pro-Western Yeltsin government of the 1990s. The claimants argue that
a giant tax bill handed to the business in 2004, as well as fraud charges against its leaders, led to its collapse and amounted to politically motivated 'expropriation.' Russia has claimed that the investors are not 'bona fide' or foreign, and therefore are not covered by international treaties. The case, Moscow says, should be settled solely in Russian courts.
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