8 Jun 2018 14:28

Court in Sweden definitively dismisses Yukos shareholders' claims against Russia - Russian representative

MOSCOW. June 8 (Interfax) - The Svea Court of Appeal has dismissed the claims filed by Yukos' Spanish shareholders against Russia and ordered the shareholders to pay $3.3 million in legal fees, Andrei Kondakov, the head of the International Center for Legal Protection, which is defending Moscow in this suit, told Interfax.

"Yesterday, Sweden's Svea Court of Appeal finally ended the dispute between a group of Spanish shareholders of Yukos' American Depositary Receipts (ADR) and Russia, which had been going on in Stockholm since March 2007, overruled the judgment by the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, and awarded Russia about $3.3 million in legal fees to be reimbursed by the Spanish minority shareholders," Kondakov told Interfax on Friday.

The proceeding started with a claim lodged by a group of Yukos' Spanish investors, among them GBI 9000 SICAV S.A., Orgor de Valores SICAV S.A., Quasar de Valores SICAV S.A., and ALOS 34 S.L., against Russia in 2007 on the basis of the Russian-Spanish Agreement on the Promotion and Mutual Protection of Investment, which was signed in 1990, with a tribunal of the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce.

"The arbitral tribunal in Stockholm disregarded its lack of jurisdiction over the claim filed by the Spanish investors and ruled in their favor on July 20, 2012. The payment would have exceeded $3.6 million if it were made now," Kondakov said.

Russia appealed the ruling to the Stockholm District Court and the Svea Court of Appeal.

"The fact that the appeal court has definitively overruled the judgment proves that the arguments presented by Yukos' Spanish shareholders are void and illegal," he said.

As of now, all arbitration awards on the "first-wave" claims filed against Russia in favor of former Yukos shareholders have been overruled, Kondakov said.

"The most significant decision was made by the Hague District Court (in April 2016) which annulled claims made by three former Yukos shareholders (Hulley Enterprises Ltd., Yukos Universal Ltd., and Veteran Petroleum Ltd.) for a sum totaling $50 billion," he said.