The Russian government wrongly forced the defunct oil giant Yukos into bankruptcy with excessive taxation in 2006, a Dutch appeals court has ruled (OGJ Online, Aug. 3, 2006).
In a dispute over assets once held by a Dutch subsidiary, Yukos Finance BV, the Amsterdam Appeals Court said an administrator appointed to sell Yukos shares lacked authority to do so.
A shareholders group led by former Yukos Chief Executive Officer Steve Theede said the ruling “exposed the extent to which the Russian Federation will go to manipulate the legal process and ignore the rule of law.”
The Yukos bankruptcy followed the 2003 imprisonment of owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Khodorkovsky was released in 2013 and went into exile. The government denies his prosecution was politically motivated.
According to press reports, members of an opposition group Khodorkovsky founded, Open Russia, have been harassed recently by Russian authorities. The group’s office in Moscow was raided last week.