An international court ordered Russia on Monday to pay Yukos shareholders a record $50 billion compensation over its seizure of the defunct oil giant, a fresh blow for a Moscow that is already reeling from sanctions over the Ukraine crisis.
Russia swiftly vowed to contest the ruling by the arbitration court in The Hague, saying it had no jurisdiction over the fate of the company once owned by jailed Kremlin critic and ex-tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Lawyers for the claimants said the court ruled that Moscow had forced Yukos into bankruptcy with outsized tax claims, and then sold its assets to state-owned firms led by energy giant Rosneft for political purposes.
Yukos was once Russia’s biggest oil company but was broken up after Khodorkovsky was arrested in 2003.
