He headed the company's legal department and represented Mikhail Khodorkovsky when the Kremlin accused the oil tycoon and his managers of money laundering and embezzlement in 2006.

After refusing to allegedly provide false evidence against other Yukos executives, he served two years in prison while suffering from advanced cancer and AIDS.

[1] On 1 April 2006, amidst the legal troubles over Yukos company, his position was elevated to that of Executive Vice President, replacing Roman Khomenko.

The decision was quite important for the struggling company as the Moscow-based offices bluntly refused all the supervision from London obeying orders of the government-controlled Rosneft instead.

[4] According to Aleksanyan, the lost control over the Moscow offices led to financial irregularities, including e.g. surfacing of counterfeit 10 billion ruble promissory note.

[14] On 20 October 2008 Simonovsky Court of Moscow approved continuing pre-trial detention of Alexanyan despite his grave illnesses (he had cancer, tuberculosis and AIDS and his spleen was surgically removed).

[15][16] Human rights advocates Lev Ponomaryov and Lyudmila Alexeyeva welcomed the court decision but expressed concern whether Alexanyan would be able to pay this sum of money.