On July 31, 2014 the European Human Rights Court in Strasbourg must announce the decision on case of YUKOS against Russia, YUKOS representative told Reuters.
The suit has been filed on behalf of all shareholders of the company and is tried separately of the suit filed to the Hague court. It was announced on July 27 at night that the Hague court decided that Russia violated the Energy Charter in the YUKOS case and actually considered the oil company dispossessed, Commersant and Reuters reported quoting the sources familiar with the course of the trial.
Group Menatep Limited (GML) representing interests of Leonid Nevzlin and Vladimir Dubov acted as a plaintiff at the Hague trial. GML demanded compensation of $114 billion, but the court evaluated the losses at $50 billion. Russia also has to pay the legal procedure costs worth $65 million. The decision on this case was expected to be made by the European Human Rights Court this year.
How did the banks get YUKOS broke
December 2003
The fiscal agencies had performed audit in YUKOS several months after the previous one, during which there were no serious claims to the company in 2000 and 2001. By that time YUKOS co-owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev, chairman of Board of Directors of Menatep Group, were already under arrest. When the audit was completed after 15 days, it was announced that in 2000 YUKOS paid 79.6 billion rubles less taxes and its debt totals 99.4 billion rubles with fines.
April 2004
Although in January 2004 YUKOS objected to the results of the audit, on April 14, 2014 the fiscal agencies made the companies to pay the full amount of debt within two days and requested the court to freeze all YUKOS’s assets, value of which significantly exceeded the size of the debt. In May 2014 the Moscow arbitration tribunal made a decision in favor of the fiscal agencies and confirmed that YUKOS will have to pay the debt.
July 2004
The consortium of the banks, which allotted credits to YUKOS, has notified the company about default of the credit worth $1 billion. After this statement the shares of the company at the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange dropped by 11%. On the same day Khodorkovsky, who remained in jail, offered the government to repay the company’s debt by the shares owned by him and his shareholders. The government did not respond.
September 2004
Soon after the General Prosecutor’s Office has arrested accounts of YUKOS and its daughter companies, the fiscal authorities submitted the second fiscal statement for year 2001 to the company – this time to the amount of 120 billion rubles. Later on they decided to make YUKOS pay 79.3 billion rubles for taxes for 2001. On the same day all YUKOS bank transactions have been suspended.
November 2004
The third fiscal statement was against YUKOS’s main asset – the production company Yuganskneftegas. It had to pay taxes worth 193 billion rubles for year 2002. By that time the amount exceeded the company’s capitalization – YUKOS’s offer to sell shares of Sibneft owned by it to pay the debt was ignored. Shortly after that Yuganskneftegas was put up for the auction with the initial price of $8.6 billion (the company’s debts totaled $5.9 billion).
December 2004
Yuganskneftegas was sold from the auction to the famous firm Baykalfinancegroup for $9.35 billion.
January 2005
Criminal case was instituted against another daughter company of YUKOS – Samaraneftegas for failure to pay taxes worth 4.5 billion rubles. The same month Khodorkovsky, who has already spent more than a year in jail, has left Group Menatep business. The stock exchange has excluded YUKOS from all its quoting lists.
March 2005
Yuganskneftegas has filed a suit against its head company and demanded YUKOS to compensate the losses worth $11 billion.
May 2005
Moscow court has sentenced Khodorkovsky and Lebedev to nine years in jail on charge of fraud and evasion of taxes (later on the term was reduced by one year each).
March 2006
According to the arbitration tribunal, YUKOS has been handed over to Rosneft for temporary management, the company’s liquidation was handled by Edward Rebgun.
August 2006
Rebgun said that the company cannot be reanimated and offered to announce it bankrupt. The Moscow arbitration tribunal agreed and appointed Rebgun the tender manager. Soon YUKOS’s shares were not traded at the London Stock Exchange and Moscow Interbank Exchange. During the next year and a half energy, oil and gas and other assets of YUKOS have been sold out in favor of creditors.
November 2007
The juridical death the company was on November 21 – the Russian Federal Fiscal has registered the company’s liquidation.
