Yukos Hunting Rosneft Assets From Venezuela to Vietnam

Armed with a record $50 billion ruling against Russia for confiscating Yukos Oil Co., the ex-owners are targeting assets of state-run OAO Rosneft and OAO Gazprom in a legal race that may run from Venezuela to Vietnam.

The 600-page judgment by an arbitration panel in The Hague this week found Rosneft, which acquired most of Yukos’s assets after they were seized and sold off, and Gazprom to be instrumental in the campaign. Backed by such a ruling, the former Yukos shareholders stand a better chance of winning court-ordered seizures of assets of Russia’s two largest companies than of sovereign property, which is usually immune from confiscation, said Gus Van Harten, an arbitration expert at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School in Canada.