MOSCOW, June 4 (RAPSI) – The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague will rule on the former Yukos shareholders’ $100 billion damages lawsuit against Russia no later than the end of June, Deutsсhe Welle announced.

In 2003, Russian authorities accused the management of Yukos, then the country’s largest oil company, of fraud and tax evasion. Several Yukos managers were convicted and sent to prison, Yukos went bankrupt, and its assets went to state-owned Rosneft. The company’s shareholders appealed to the court in The Hague after the new owners refused to pay them any compensation.

The news about the expected ruling was made public in Berlin by Tim Osborne, the director of Group Menatep Limited (GML), a company that was established in the late 1990s that once held 60% of Yukos shares. Osborne was in the German capital to talk to local journalists about the upcoming settlement of the drawn-out litigation.

Osborne said the ruling would be emailed to the plaintiff and the defendant, that is, the Kremlin, a week before its announcement, so that the sides would have time to prepare their responses. GML plans to hold a news conference in London as soon as it receives the email from The Hague.