The case of the Yukos Oil Company’s dismantling has become
synonymous worldwide with expropriation. The famed Russian corporation’s case has reached the ten
year milestone, with the situation still considered to be unfairly settled by
some. The case has been lauded as a typical example of expropriation by a
governmental authority.
As the Yukos Oil Company stands now, it is in the process of
undergoing appeals to the expropriation in the Amsterdam district courts, after
its consideration by the European Court of Human Rights. The case has drawn attention from prolific figures on a
global scale, with political individuals, academic scholars and journalists all
lending their support to Yukos Oil.
For example, a 2013 review by the Houses of Parliament in
the United Kingdom produced the following opinions of the case:
Lord Judd stated that he found criminalisation of businesses
to be a “routine” tactic for law enforcers in Russia. Entrepreneurship was punished,
in his opinion, with the courts of law producing biased verdicts due to
“external pressure”. This pressure also influenced other decisions made
regarding Yukos Oil and its affiliates. Lord Trimble added to the discussion,
opining that the Yukos Oil case had essentially become the “turning point in
the development of the regime”.
Lord Alderdice, a prominent figure, commented that the
European Court of Human Rights was subjected to delays due to the repeated
replacement of Russian officials in the court’s consideration of the Yukos Oil
case of Vasily Aleksanyan.
Lord Hylton stated outright that “the fate of Yukos Oil was
also most unsatisfactory.” In his opinion, the assets of the company were
redistributed without full consideration of its proper value. The general consensus from the discussion seems to have fallen
of the side of Yukos Oil and its managing partners, with human rights cited as
a main cause for concern for the United Kingdom’s government figures.
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