Russia Made No Effort to Pay Compensation to Yukos Shareholders – Envoy

GENEVA (Sputnik) – Russia has not yet begun work needed to pay the compensation of 1.68 billion euros (nearly $1.8 at the current exchange rate) awarded last year by the European Court for Human Rights (ECHR) to shareholders of the now-defunct oil company Yukos, Russia’s envoy to the court said Monday.

“The Russian Federation gravely doubts the possibility of putting this ruling into practice. So far, we have begun no work to comply [with the ruling],” Georgy Matyushkin said.

The Russian Justice Ministry has said earlier it had doubts about impartiality of the legal proceedings and the verdict and attempted to appeal it, but to no avail.

ECHR upheld its verdict – reached on July 31, 2014 – obliging Yukos to compensate its former shareholders last December.

Last Thursday, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe – the independent organization's decision-making body – set a time limit on Russia to establish a timeframe and an action plan to carry out the court's decision until June 15.

Meanwhile, Russian Minister of Justice Aleksander Konovalov has maintained that no strict deadline for the ruling's enforcement exists according to the court's rules, though the Committee of Ministers may follow up on its execution a year or two later.

"We pay close attention to these recommendations… but do as we see fit," the minister said Monday, adding that no decision has been reached whether to comply with the ruling.

Moscow's court of arbitration declared Yukos bankrupt in 2006. The disbanded oil giant has been under Russian billionaire Mikhail Khodorkosvsky's control, who has spent a decade in prison for fraud and tax evasion until being pardoned in December 2013.