THE HAGUE: The Amsterdam Court of Appeal has upheld the decision of international arbitrators in the Yukos case, rejecting Russia's app...
THE HAGUE: The Amsterdam Court of Appeal has upheld the decision of international arbitrators in the Yukos case, rejecting Russia's appeal asking to overturn the $50 bln the Russian side has to pay to the company’s former stakeholders, according to the ruling published on the court’s website.
The court "overrules the decision from April 20, 2016," which lifted payment obligations from Russia, and "rejects the claims of the Russian Federation," while "arbitration decisions should not be canceled," the document reads.
The international arbitration, brokered by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague, made its ruling a decade after the case started in 2014. Russia must pay more than $50 bln to companies connected with former Yukos shareholders, including Yukos Universal, Hulley Enterprises and Veteran Petroleum.
The verdict was appealed in the Dutch court. In November 2021, the Dutch Supreme Court satisfied Russia’s cassation appeal on one item saying that former Yukos shareholders committed fraud during the arbitration, remitting the matter to the Amsterdam Court of Appeal. Claims on other items, including those concerning interpretation of provisions of the contract to the Energy Charter, were rejected, while decisions on them recognized as final. In its ruling the Amsterdam Court of Appeal came to the conclusion that "arbitration decisions should not be canceled due to fraud," while "on the remaining grounds final decisions have already been made for their cancellation."
Yukos case
Yukos, once Russia’s largest oil firm, was accused of tax crimes and declared bankrupt by a Russian court ruling in 2006 while its assets were sold at auction during the liquidation procedure.
In 2007, former Yukos shareholders filed a lawsuit with the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague claiming that the Russian government had expropriated Yukos’s assets and demanding compensation for losses under Article 45 of Europe’s Energy Charter Treaty.
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