Moscow court upholds ruling to recover 17 bln rubles from Yukos's Khodorkovsky, Lebedev
MOSCOW. March 21 (Interfax) - The Moscow City Court has upheld a lower court's ruling on recovering 17 billion rubles from former Yukos top managers Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev under the first criminal case against them.
"The sentence regarding the granting of a Federal Tax Service civil suit against Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev on recovering the amount of material damage from them is legitimate and justified," the Moscow City Court said in its ruling.
Hence, the court decided "to turn down Russian Human Rights Commissioner Vladimir Lukin's motion on reconsidering Moscow's Meshchansky Court ruling of May 16, 2005 as concerns the Russian Federal Tax Service's civil suit against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev," it said.
"The sentence that has been appealed as concerns the civil suit and the judicial decisions made within the framework of the arbitration proceedings do not indicate that the courts considered the suits on the same basis and in relation to the same individuals," the Moscow City Court said.
The judicial rulings handed down during Yukos's bankruptcy procedures, to which Lukin referred, were handed down after the Meshchansky Court's sentence took effect, it said.
The first case against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev was considered by a cassation court, and the sentence was upheld as regards the civil suit, it said.
"There are no reasons to open supervisory proceedings and consider a revision of the court rulings appealed as regards the settlement of the civil suit," it said.
Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were arrested in 2003 and were found guilty of fraud and tax evasion and sentenced to nine years in prison each in May 2005. The Moscow City Court later commuted the sentences to eight years in prison each.
It was reported about the second criminal case against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev when the first proceedings were nearing the end. The two ex-Yukos managers were sentenced to 14 years in prison each for oil theft and legalization of proceeds from its sales in December 2010. The Moscow City Court presidium commuted the sentences to 11 years on December 20, 2012. Khodorkovsky's and Lebedev's imprisonment term started in 2003.
