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| Court orders Russia to pay $50bn to Yukos shareholders | Court orders Russia to pay $50bn to Yukos shareholders |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| A court in the Hague has awarded shareholders in the defunct Russian oil company Yukos the largest compensation package to date. | |
| The Court of Arbitration said that Russia must pay $50bn (£29.5bn) in damages after finding that President Putin's officials wrongly forced Yukos into bankruptcy. | |
| Yukos was once Russia's largest oil producer. | Yukos was once Russia's largest oil producer. |
| Russia's Foreign Minister said Russia would most likely appeal the decision. | |
| Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: "The Russian side, those agencies which represent Russia in this process, will no doubt use all available legal possibilities to defend its position." | |
| The claim was filed by a subsidiary for the financial holding company GML, once the biggest shareholder in Yukos Oil Co. | |
| 'Major step' | |
| GML Executive Director Tim Osborne said: "The majority shareholders of Yukos Oil were left without compensation for the loss of their investment when Russia illegally expropriated Yukos," | |
| "It is a major step forward for the majority shareholders, who have been battling for over 10 years for this decision." | |
| In addition to forcing the company into bankruptcy, Russia also sold Yukos' assets to state-owned businesses for political purposes, according to the claimant's lawyer Emmanuel Gaillard. | In addition to forcing the company into bankruptcy, Russia also sold Yukos' assets to state-owned businesses for political purposes, according to the claimant's lawyer Emmanuel Gaillard. |
| Yukos was disbanded in 2007 after filing for bankruptcy in 2006. | |
| The company was formerly controlled by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was at one point Russia's richest man. | |
| Mr Khodorkovsky built Yukos into Russia's largest investor-owned oil company after the fall of the Soviet Union. | |
| He was arrested in 2003 and spent ten years in jail after being convicted of fraud and tax evasion. | |
| The state-owned Rosneft bought the bulk of Yukos assets though auctions after the company was declared bankrupt. It says all the deals were legal. |