MOSCOW, January 21 (RAPSI) – Luxembourg-registered Yukos Capital S.a.r.l. (Yukos) has filed a claim with a Commercial court in Tomsk seeking to recognize the ruling of the international court on its litigation versus Russian Tomskneft over three unpaid loan agreements.

In late 2014, the French Supreme Court (Cour de cassation) ruled in favor of Yukos Capital.

The dispute concerns three loan agreements signed in 2004 for 4.3 billion rubles (over $66 million at the current exchange rate), which Russian courts dismissed as invalid. In February 2007, the International Court of Arbitration at the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) ruled in favor of Yukos and assigned it about 7.2 billion rubles ($110 million) in compensation, including interest.

Russia contested that ruling, and in January 2013 the Paris Court of Appeal reversed the judgment over procedural issues. Tomskneft, which is a joint venture of Rosneft and Gazprom Neft, insisted that there were no grounds for the litigation and that the fulfilment of the court’s ruling would infringe on public order because the loan agreements were allegedly part of a fraudulent tax evasion scheme.

However, according to Yukos representatives, in November 2014 the French Supreme Court upheld Yukos’s appeal against a Paris Court of Appeal decision to refuse the enforcement of the award, stating that an arbitral award of more than 7 billion rubles payable by Rosneft’s subsidiary to Yukos Capital is enforceable in France.