Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Russia

Russian Court Rejects Ruling On Western Banks' Claim On Yukos

The court rejected a ruling ordering Yukos to repay a $475 million loan to Western creditors (AFP)

30 November 2005 -- Russia's Federal Arbitration Court today rejected a lower court ruling ordering the Yukos oil company to repay an oustanding loan of $475 million to foreign creditors.

TEXT SIZE - +

November 30, 2005

In 2003, Yukos borrowed $1 billion from Western banks. When the company failed to meet loan payments, 14 creditor banks took their case to London's High Court, which backed their claims.

The case then went to the Moscow Arbitration Court, which earlier this year ordered Yukos to pay the banks $475 million.

Following an appeal by Yukos, the Federal Arbitration Court today rejected that ruling and sent the case back to the lower court.

Yukos, once Russia's largest oil producer, is also facing claims by Russian tax authorities of billions of dollars in back taxes.

(ITAR-TASS/AP)

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin covers his face during a conference of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs in Moscow on February 9.

Administrative (Resource) Breakdown

Administrative resources make up the glue that holds authoritarian structures like Putin's power vertical together. And there have been plenty of signs recently that this glue is weakening. More

Syrians in the northwestern town of Kfar Nubul pose with a cartoon depicting Russia

Angry Over Syria, Arab World Threatens Russian Boycott

Groups in a number of Arab states, angry over the Russian-Chinese veto of a UN resolution aimed at stopping the violence in Syria, have called for a one-day boycott of Russian and Chinese goods on February 12. More

Alla Dzhioyeva attends a protest by her supporters in Tskhinvali on January 28.

South Ossetian Opposition Leader Hospitalized After Raid

Alla Dzhioyeva, the opposition candidate whose victory in a runoff ballot in November for de facto president of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia was swiftly annulled by the republic's Supreme Court, was taken to a hospital after a raid by some 200 masked security personnel on her headquarters in Tskhinvali. More