The Yukos Oil Company's former shareholders and management filed a series of claims in courts and before arbitration panels in various countries, seeking compensation for their expropriation.
[4] Observers note the bad timing of the final rulings on the majority shareholders' claim for Russia amid the Ukrainian crisis.
[11] In 2005, Yukos unsuccessfully asked a US court in Houston to send its multibillion-dollar tax dispute with the Russian authorities to an international arbitration forum.
[12] By bringing the case in a US court, Yukos sought to focus international attention on its travails and increase pressure on Russian authorities.
Lastly, the applicant company complains, under Article 7 (no punishment without law) of the Convention, about the lack of proper legal basis, selective and arbitrary prosecution and the imposition of double penalties in the Tax Assessment proceedings for the years 2000–2003.”[15]Following an admissibility assessment that took five years, the court declared the Yukos application admissible on 29 January 2009.
[17] The hearing on merits of the Yukos Oil Company v Russia case in the European Court of Human Rights took place on 4 March 2010.
The Russian authorities were unyielding and inflexible in response to requests for time to pay and the bailiffs imposed additional fines amounting to €1.15 Bn, which had to be paid before the taxes, but the payment of which was prohibited under the freezing orders."
[citation needed] No monetary amount was awarded after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) found the question of damages as "not ready for decision".
In December 2014, however, the court rejected an appeal and decided Russia had six months to work out, together with the Council of Europe, the continent's main human rights and democracy forum, a plan "for distribution of the award of just satisfaction".
[29] That same day, more than 90 deputies of the Russian State Duma sent a request to the country's Constitutional Court to clarify how ECHR writs of executions should be applied in Russia.
[38] When Rosneft refused to make the requested payments, Yukos Capital asked the courts in Britain, Ireland and the state of New York to oblige it.
[41] At the Court of Appeal of Paris in January 2013, Rosneft oil extraction subsidiary OAO Tomskneft successfully challenged enforcement in France of the international arbitral award obtained by Yukos Capital S.a.r.l.
[43] In 2005, GML Ltd. (formerly Group Menatep), the former owner of 60 percent of Yukos, filed a lawsuit under the Energy Charter Treaty before a tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.
GML drew on two main provisions for its case - Although Russia did not ultimately ratify the full treaty, these clauses were still agreed as legally binding for a number of years, as part of the draft framework.
[48] As a consequence, the three-person tribunal[49] led by Canadian lawyer Yves Fortier[50] ruled in 2009 that it would hear the case[51] and that the Veteran Petroleum Trust, a corporate pension fund covering 30,000 ex-Yukos employees,[18] as well as two companies that own Yukos shares — all represented by GML – could seek payments from the Russian government.
[56][57][58] Russia played a full part in the arbitration, appointing heavyweight law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton to represent it.
[64][65][66] In particular, the panel said Russia “was not driven by motives of tax collection” in auctioning off a core business but “by the desire of the state to acquire Yukos' most valuable asset.” [49] However, the arbitrators docked 25 per cent from the value they attributed to the assets seized.
[68] The shareholders do not include Khodorkovsky,[69] who had signed over his Yukos majority stake to Nevzlin during his trial in 2005,[18] in an effort to fend off the attack on the company,[70][71] and has renounced any claim.
[69] Other key beneficiaries include the Veteran Petroleum, a pension fund for about 30,000 former Yukos employees set up in 2001,[49] which is due to receive another $8.2 billion from Russia.
[59] Russia has petitioned the court to set the arbitration award aside on technical grounds[59] and missed a deadline to pay the full sum in January 2015.
[90][91] On 20 April 2016 the District Court of The Hague quashed the decisions of the PCA, ruling that it had no jurisdiction as provisional application of the ECT arbitration clause violated Russian law.
[94] Two arbitration tribunals in Stockholm in 2010 and 2012 ruled in favor of Yukos investors from the United Kingdom and Spain who demanded compensation under bilateral investment protection treaties.
In early 2006, RosInvestCo UK Ltd., a former minority shareholder of Yukos Oil Company and affiliate of Elliott Associates,[8] initiated a suit against Russia on the basis of a bilateral investment treaty between the United Kingdom and the Russian Federation.
[95] In May 2006, the tribunal was constituted at the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce and included Karl-Heinz Böckstiegel, Sir Franklin Berman KCMG QC and the Rt Hon Lord Steyn.