Yukos

British Virgin Islands-domiciled Yukos Capital Limited yesterday filed a petition at federal court in Washington, D.C. to enforce a $5 billion arbitration award that was entered against Russia last year in Switzerland.

Petition to Enforce Arbitral Award that "arises from Russia’s illegal expropriation of Yukos Capital’s multi-billion dollar investments in Yukos Oil Company in the form of two loans made in 2003 and 2004" in Yukos Capital Limited, of the British Virgin Islands, described as "a former, indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary of Yukos Oil" v. The Russian Federation at the U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Alexei Golubovich, longtime partner of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, is the target of legal action in Switzerland by his former associate Yelena Collongues-Popova and is being investigated by a Geneva judge on a charge of forgery. Golubovich has not been indicted by Russian prosecutors, though they are interested in talking to the former Yukos finance director who has reportedly fled to London. However, he could be indicted by the Swiss.

A business group headed by Russia's richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was arrested in October for allegedly defrauding the state of $1 billion, stashed money in offshore centers, including Switzerland, Luxembourg, the British Virgin Islands, the Seychelles, Panama and the Bahamas, according to Yelena Collongues-Popova, who worked for one of Khodorkovsky's associates. Lucy Komisar, a New York investigative reporter who is writing a book about the offshore banking and corporate secrecy system, interviewed Collongues-Popova. This is her story.