Court orders Russia to pay Yukos $50 billion

The Hague’s arbitration court ruled yesterday that Russia must pay a group of shareholders in oil giant Yukos $51.6 billion (Sh4.4 trillion) for expropriating its assets, a big hit for a country teetering on the brink of recession. The arbitration panel in the Netherlands said it had awarded shareholders in the GML group just under half of their $114 billion claim, going some way to covering the money they lost when the Kremlin seized Yukos, once controlled by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a decade ago. “The award is a slam dunk. It is for $50 billion, and that cannot be disputed,” said Tim Osborne, director of GML. “It’s now a question of enforcing it.” Russia’s Finance Ministry called the ruling “flawed”, “one-sided” and “politically biased” and said it would appeal the decision. It comes as Russia and the West are in their biggest stand-off since the Cold War over Moscow’s actions in Ukraine. Russia argued the court ignored tax violations by Yukos.