Amsterdam Court Orders Russia To Pay $60 Billion In Compensation To Yukos Shareholders

Russia's appeal was rejected.

The Court of Appeal in Amsterdam has rejected a Russian request to cancel the payment of compensation awarded to former shareholders of the Yukos oil company. In 2014, the international arbitration court in The Hague ruled that Moscow must pay more than $50 billion, with interest the amount could have exceeded $60 billion, Radio Svaboda reported.

Yukos was Russia's largest oil company in the early 2000s. It underwent bankruptcy proceedings in 2006 after its founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky became a defendant in a criminal case of embezzlement and tax evasion. The businessman called the prosecution political.

Most of the company's assets went to state-owned Rosneft at a significant discount. The former Yukos shareholders proved in an arbitration court that the company was, in fact, expropriated by the state.

This decision was overturned by the Dutch Supreme Court in 2021. Now Russia can again go to the same court to appeal the judgement handed down today. Moscow has repeatedly made it clear that it has no plans to pay compensation regardless of the courts' rulings.

Yukos shareholders are trying to enforce the judgement in courts of Western jurisdictions, demanding the seizure of Russian state assets.