In what is being reported as the biggest ever arbitration award, on 18 July 2014 the Russian Federation was ordered to pay just over $50 billion to former shareholders of OAO Yukos Oil Company (“Yukos”) following the state’s campaign to destroy its business and expropriate its assets for Rosneft, the state oil company. The Tribunal itself described the case as “mammoth”. Here is a summary of what it was about.
What was the case about?
In a nutshell, this extraordinary case was about the unfair treatment of Yukos and the expropriation of its assets by the Russian state, all of which took place between 2003-2007.
Yukos had emerged from the post-Soviet era and full privatization in 1995-1996 to become Russia’s largest oil company, employing about 100,000 people, and one of the largest oil companies in the world.
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