Yukos International Gets Access to 2006 Refinery Sale Proceeds
The Dutch Supreme Court lifted the freeze on $1.2 billion of proceeds from the 2006 sale of a refinery by a former Dutch unit of OAO Yukos Oil Co., once Russia’s largest oil producer.
Yukos International UK BV “isn’t prohibited to dispose of the proceeds,” The Hague-based court said today in a statement on its website. It overturned prior rulings by the Court of Appeal and the District Court in Amsterdam.
OOO Promneftstroy, an investment vehicle controlled by U.S. businessman Stephen Lynch, agreed to buy the legal entity that held all Yukos International shares in 2007. That transaction was later canceled by a Dutch court, so there is no legal ground for Promneftstroy’s argument Yukos International isn’t allowed to claim the money, the Supreme Court said.
“This ruling is another positive step toward the ultimate resolution of the false ownership claims of Promneftstroy,” Bruce Misamore, Yukos Oil Co.’s former finance chief, said in an e-mailed statement after the ruling. “Yukos International UK BV directors are committed to ensuring that stakeholders damaged by the illegal expropriation of Russia’s most successful oil company can someday benefit from the distribution of funds commensurate to their investment.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government dismantled Yukos Oil, once Russia’s biggest crude-oil exporter, after hitting the company with more than $30 billion in tax charges. State-run OAO Rosneft became the nation’s largest oil company by acquiring most of bankrupt Yukos’s assets for $27 billion in 2006 after a series of forced auctions.
Foundation
Yukos International’s shares are currently held by a foundation run by former Yukos Oil executives and a number of independent persons, Barbara Rumora-Scheltema, a lawyer with the firm NautaDutilh, representing Yukos International, said by telephone today. The foundation’s aim is to ensure Yukos Oil’s former shareholders get the assets that have been preserved, Rumora-Scheltema said.
The foundation won’t distribute the $1.2 billion from the sale of Lithuanian refinery, AB Mazeikiu Nafta, as long as there is still a dispute over whether Promneftstroy owned Yukos Finance, Rumora-Scheltema said.
Promneftstroy’s lawyers have said they’ll appeal the Amsterdam Court of Appeal’s October decision that the sale of Yukos Finance BV, which owned Yukos International’s equity, by a Russian administrator wasn’t legal because it didn’t fall within Yukos Oil’s Russian bankruptcy, Rumora-Scheltema said.
Lianne Kelkensberg, a lawyer for BarentsKrans NV, which represent Promneftstroy at the Supreme Court, wasn’t immediately able to comment.
To contact the reporter on this story: Martijn van der Starre in Amsterdam at vanderstarre@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Angela Cullen at acullen8@bloomberg.net;
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