The London High Court has lifted a freeze in the U.K on the assets of Russian state-run oil major Rosneft in a lawsuit filed by former managers of now defunct oil giant Yukos, a Rosneft representative said on Thursday.
"The parties came to agreement, as a result of which the High Court of London accepted our guarantees and the freeze of assets was cancelled," Nikolai Manvelov said.
The Yukos managers earlier won injunctions in the United States and Great Britain stemming from legal disputes during bankruptcy proceedings against Yukos in 2007. Media reports said the injunctions could jeopardize payments by foreign customers for Rosneft's oil deliveries.
Rosneft said last month it had partly overturned the lawsuit in the U.S., pledged to challenge the London injunction and made assurances that its export supplies would not be affected.
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, who was 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.
Yukos ex-managers are also 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's expropriation.
MOSCOW, April 8 (RIA Novosti)
