Friday 30 January 2009

Yukos Lawsuit

In December, I mentioned a judgment of the Court in the case of Aleksanyan, one of the former executives of the now defunct Russian oil company Yukos. Today the EU Observer reported that the Court declared a claim of the shareholders of that company admissible. Reportedly, they claim more than 32.5 billion euros in damages, making this the ECHR case with the largest possible financial implications in its history. No news on the Court's site as yet, nor in the HUDOC search engine. But the EU Observer's article tells us that Russia's ambassador to the Council of Europe saw this as another sign of the "politicisation" of the Court. A wobbly road ahead, whatever the outcome of the case will be.