- October 18, 2025
- 12:13 pm
- World News
In the Supreme Court of the Netherlands on October 6, the last appeal by Russia in the case of the arbitration decision amounting to 50 billion dollars, won by former shareholders of the Russian oil company Yukos, including businessman Leonid Nevzlin, was rejected.
The court recognized that this decision concludes the years-long legal saga.
The shareholders accused Moscow of deliberately destroying the company more than twenty years ago, claiming it was done to silence its former head Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a known critic of President Putin. According to the plaintiffs’ calculations, including interest, the claim amount reaches 65 billion dollars.
This decision confirms the previous ruling by judges from Amsterdam, who rejected Russia’s last legal argument in the lawsuit based on the 2014 arbitration decision. The arbitrators determined that Russia seized Yukos in 2003, carrying out a systematic destruction of the company through inflated tax claims. In the same year, Khodorkovsky was arrested with the use of force and spent more than ten years in detention, while Yukos’s main assets were sold to a state company, and Yukos itself went bankrupt.
Leonid Nevzlin welcomed the Dutch court’s decision, noting that “the GML team and everyone involved in the years-long Yukos case deserve sincere congratulations for this final triumph.”
He added that “Putin’s illegal campaign began with Yukos in 2003. Since then, his regime has sought to destroy the world, and we, targeted in the Yukos case, never gave up.” Leonid Nevzlin concluded that
“today’s victory confirms a simple truth: justice must always prevail!”
Tim Osborne, CEO of GML, representing the former shareholders, called the decision a “historic triumph,” confirming that no state is above the law. He also emphasized that the full claim amount, including interest, has grown to more than 65 billion dollars, and that GML will focus on enforcing the decision against Russian assets worldwide until “every cent” is collected.
