Rusland moet 50 miljard betalen aan voormalige Yukos-aandeelhouders

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Rusland moet $50 miljard betalen aan Yukos-aandeelhouders

ma 28 jul 2014, 11:30

Een nieuwe tegenslag voor de toch al broze Russische economie. Het land moet $50 miljard (¤37,2 miljard) betalen aan de aandeelhouders van oliebedrijf Yukos, dat in 2006 failliet verklaard en genationaliseerd werd.

Dat maakte het Haagse Permanente Hof van Arbitrage vandaag bekend.

Onteigend

Yukos was grotendeels eigendom van de oligarch Michail Chodorkovski. Deze rijke Rus sprak zich geregeld uit tegen president Poetin, werd in 2003 gearresteerd en in 2005 veroordeeld vanwege diefstal en belastingontduiking. In december 2013 kwam hij weer op vrije voeten en vluchtte naar Zwitserland.

Grote delen van Yukos kwamen na het failllissement terecht bij Rosneft, dat geleid wordt door Igor Sechin, die goede banden heeft met Poetin. Op het hoogtepunt van Yukos $40 miljard waard, maar de afzonderlijke onderdelen gingen voor een veel lagere prijs naar Russische staatsbedrijven.

Miljardenschade

Enkele aandeelhouders van Yukos begonnen daarop een procedure tegen de Russische staat. Zij claimden $100 miljard schade te hebben geleden. Chodorkovski is niet betrokken bij de procedure: hij deed na zijn arrestatie zijn belang over aan de naar Israel gevluchte Russische zakenman Leonid Nevzlin.

De rechters in Den Haag hebben volgens Kommersant niet de hele claim toegewezen, maar Rusland moet vanaf 2 januari 2015 beginnen met het betalen van in totaal $50 miljard (¤37,2 miljard). Nevzlin is de grootste ontvanger, de rest van het geld gaat naar Platon Lebedev, Mikhail Brudno, Vladimir Dubov and Vasilly Shaknovski.

Er lopen nog tal van andere procedures in de Yukos-zaak. Zo stapten voormalige managers van het oliebedrijf naar het Europees Hof voor de Rechten van de Mens. Dat oordeelde in een tussenvonnis in 2011 deels in het voordeel van de Russische staat.

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'Yukos judgment marks true divorce between Russia and the West'

The decision by the International Arbitration Court in the Netherlands is a political one and there is no mechanism that I am aware of for enforcing Russia to make the $50bn payment, energy asset manager Eric Kraus told RT.

RT: The International Arbitration Court in the Netherlands has ended a decade long case against Russia brought by shareholders in the defunct Yukos oil company. Why after so many years [did it crop up] today?

Eric Kraus: I think the timing is extremely suspicious. The entire judgment is rotten. Mr. Khodorkovsky was found guilty not only in Russian courts, but that guilty sentence for tax evasion and fraud was upheld by the European Court of Human Rights. It is an outrage that anyone should imagine that Russia is going to pay 50 billion dollars to these criminals.

RT: How will the situation develop? Will Russia pay this sum?

EK: How it is going to develop? Basically this is a judgment which is going to have no real consequences. The Russian state will never pay. The Russian Duma never ratified the treaty under which this judgment has been made. It is not a legally binding judgment. To get settlement from the Russian state is impossible. I would invite you to look at the attempts that have been made to enforce judgments against Argentina, which have failed.

But this judgment is significant as it marks a true divorce between Russia and the West. I personally have been working for 17 years to build economic relations between Russia and the West and we have failed. Russia must now turn away from Western powers and look to the rising world, to the rising countries of the East.

RT: Is there somebody behind such a sudden arbitration decision? Or the International Arbitration Court in the Netherlands has just finally examined the case to pronounce judgment?

EK: Personally I would put the responsibility with Washington, not with Europe. Europe is the tail, Washington is the dog. Europe has not been able to articulate a reasonable foreign policy response, and there are people in Washington who make very good careers out of creating trouble with Russia, out of portraying Russia as the enemy. Russia is not the enemy, but Russia is an independent state with its own needs, its own foreign policy and this obviously does not please Washington.

RT: Is it a fair decision meaning how much fraud was conducted by the ex-Yukos and Menotep officials?

EK: It strikes me as a very political decision. The West manages to create this illusion of fair play, of rule of law, of fairness in the judicial process, and this is a bad joke. Russia will appeal it but even if they lose an appeal, there is essentially no way to enforce the judgment unless the Russian state decides to pay it, and I do not see the Russian state paying money to a group of murderers and fraudsters. The people who ran Menotep were the worst old-type oligarchs, and Russia is simply not going to pay. There is no mechanism that I am aware of for enforcing payment.

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In December 2006, Russia indicated that the ratification of the ECT was unlikely due to the provisions requiring third-party access to Russia's pipelines. On 20 August 2009, it officially informed the depository of the treaty (Government of Portugal) that it did not intend to become a contracting party to the treaty and the related protocol terminating the provisional application of the ECT and the PEEREA starting from 18 October 2009.

Notwithstanding the termination of provisional application of the ECT by Russia, the provisions regarding dispute settlements and investment protection are still in force for additional twenty years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Charter_Treaty

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Op maandag 28 juli 2014 20:13 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:
FF incassoburo naar het Kremlin sturen.

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Op maandag 28 juli 2014 20:15 schreef Hathor het volgende:
Stuur ze maar een accept-giro, kijken hoe lang het duurt.

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(..)
The Yukos shareholders have the right to go after state assets around the world if Russia doesn’t pay, Osborne said. “I don’t think that Rosneft can be 100 percent confident that all their assets in the West will be secure,” he said.

Russia has refused to pay damages in similar rulings before and seizing state assets abroad is a difficult task. Noga Import & Export SA, a Geneva-based trading company, won a series of court rulings in Europe to enforce payment for goods including baby food and pesticides that it supplied to Russia in exchange for oil in 1991 and 1992.
(..)
The Yukos plaintiffs will have the right to go to arbitration courts in about 100 countries that are party to the 1958 New York Convention to enforce the ruling, according to Gus Van Harten, a professor specializing in arbitration at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School in Canada.

Because it will be hard to seize Russian government assets, which are mostly protected by diplomatic immunity, state companies such as Rosneft and Gazprom would make easier targets, Van Harten said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/(...)russia-gml-says.html

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Op maandag 28 juli 2014 20:56 schreef RemcoDelft het volgende:

[..]

Logisch toch? Ik zou ook niet betalen als iemand in een klein landje ergens ver weg me een boete oplegt...

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Op maandag 28 juli 2014 21:17 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

[..]

Dus als de Nederlandse overheid veroordeeld zou worden door de Zuid-Afrikanen op basis van een Apartheidswet in 1899, vind jij ook dat we maar moeten betalen?