A U.S. court has ruled to seize $419 million worth of assets of Russia's state oil major Rosneft under a lawsuit filed by managers of the now defunct oil giant Yukos, a business daily reported on Thursday.
According to Vedomosti, the injunction, which stems from legal disputes during bankruptcy proceedings against Yukos in 2007, could jeopardize payments by foreign customers for Rosneft's oil deliveries.
Once Russia's largest oil producer, Yukos collapsed after charges of tax evasion led to the company being broken up and sold off to meet debts. The bulk of the company's assets were bought up by state-run oil company Rosneft.
Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky, sentenced to eight years in prison for fraud and tax evasion, has consistently denied all charges against him, saying he was punished for supporting the tiny pro-Western opposition, and that the liquidation of Yukos was engineered by corrupt government officials aiming to seize lucrative oil assets.
Rosneft's shares tumbled on Wednesday on the news of the U.S. court injunction, raising fears about the company's exposure to a string of lawsuits threatening some of its key assets.
In a similar case, Yukos ex-managers are suing the Russian government for a total of $100 billion in the Human Rights Court in Strasbourg, claiming the sum is what Yukos was worth at the time of what they say was the company expropriation.
MOSCOW, March 18 (RIA Novosti)
