The Dutch Supreme Court on Friday overturned Moscow's conviction to pay $ 50 billion in compensation to ex-shareholders of former oil giant Yukos, at the heart of a court drama since the arrest of its former boss, Mikhail Khodorkovsky , oligarch and declared enemy of the Kremlin.
Read also Yukos Affair: Russian vodka seized to make Moscow pay
"
The Supreme Court overturned the final judgment of the Court of Appeal
" which ordered the payment, she said in a statement, adding that the case should be referred to the Amsterdam Court of Appeal for a new judgment.
The case lasts
Accused by the ex-shareholders of having orchestrated the dismantling of Yukos for political reasons, Russia was initially ordered to compensate them in 2014 by an international court located in The Hague. The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) had ruled that the ex-shareholders deserved compensation for the dissolution of Yukos after the arrest in 2003 of Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Moscow has refused to pay and has fought in Dutch courts for the past seven years to get the judgment overturned.
The Supreme Court declared that it ruled in favor of Russia on one point, relating to a procedural question, which means that "
the judgments of the Court of Appeal cannot stand
".
Yukos, which was the first Russian black gold producer, was founded in the 1990s after the fall of the USSR.
Businessmen, including Mikhail Khodorkovsky, amassed fortunes by acquiring Soviet assets at low prices, especially in the commodities sector, as the country was in deep crisis.
Yukos was sold cut to size between 2004 and 2006, largely to the Russian state-owned oil group Rosneft.
Pardoned in December 2013 by the Russian president, Mikhail Khodorkovsky has been living in exile since then and is not part of the affair.
A record sum
The Yukos affair is widely regarded as the moment when Vladimir Putin brought the great Russian oligarchs to heel, whose influence over the political system reached its peak under Boris Yeltsin. GML, a company that brings together the former majority shareholders of Yukos, believes it is entitled to compensation for losses caused by the dissolution of the oil giant. The PCA ruled in their favor in 2014 and allocated them a record sum in the history of the jurisdiction, basing its decision on a multilateral agreement dating from 1994, the Energy Charter Treaty.
But in a surprising turnaround, a Dutch court overturned the decision in 2016, saying the PCA was "
not competent
" to rule because Moscow signed the treaty but did not ratify it.
A Dutch appeals court then in turn reinstated the original sentence in 2020, subsequently giving rise to a Russian appeal to the Supreme Court.
Last April, the principal legal adviser of this body recommended that this appeal be dismissed.
Read also Yukos case: justice restores Russia's condemnation to pay $ 50 billion
After the judgment of the Dutch Supreme Court on Friday, the Yukos legal saga is therefore far from over.
And even if the ex-shareholders do win their case one day, they will have to be patient because then it would probably be necessary to go through legal proceedings to seize Russian assets in several countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and the United States. - Low, to see the color of the 50 billion dollars.
These proceedings have already started with the seizure in 2020 of the assets in the Netherlands of two emblematic Russian vodka brands, Stolichnaya and Moskovskaya.
The Supreme Court's decision could fuel the climate of tension between The Hague and Moscow, whose relations are suffering from several disputed cases in court.