Yukos liquidator to appeal court ruling 02/11/2007 00:00

2 November 2007

MOSCOW - The liquidator of defunct Russian oil company Yukos said on Thursday he would appeal a Dutch court decision that found the sale of foreign assets of a Yukos subsidiary to be illegal.

"The liquidator will take all measures to appeal this decision," said Nikolai Lashkevich, a spokesman for Yukos' liquidator Eduard Rebgun, quoted by RIA Novosti.

Lashkevich said Wednesday's court ruling annulling the sale of assets of the Dutch subsidiary Yukos Finance did not correspond to international law.

The court argued in its ruling that Russia's declaration of Yukos' bankruptcy was invalid.

Yukos Finance was sold under Rebgun's supervision for EUR 224 million to a former subsidiary of state-controlled oil group Rosneft. It had assets of around EUR 2.0 billion.
 
Yukos was declared bankrupt with debts of USD 27.5 billion (EUR 20 billion) after a Russian government tax fraud probe that was widely seen as politically motivated and after the jailing of the company's former chief, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, on embezzlement charges.

Khodorkovsky has served four years of his eight-year term.

[Copyright AFP 2007]

Subject: Dutch news