Yukos lawyers granted Chevron order

Lawyers for Mikhail Khodorkovsky, former CEO of Russian oil company Yukos, have announced that a US magistrate has granted them access to Yukos-related due diligence documents held by US oil company Chevron.

Before his arrest in October 2003 Khodorkovsky was finalising talks on the sale of a stake in Yukos with both ExxonMobil and Chevron.

The lawyers hope the documents will prove untrue Russian prosecutors’ claims that Khodorkovsky embezzled more than $30 billion in oil revenues, as, “Were there any truth to the accusations, Chevron would have undoubtedly detected the widespread criminal misconduct alleged, and would not have continued to pursue the acquisition.”

The court filing stated that “It is virtually inconceivable that a sophisticated oil company like Chevron would not notice a 350 million ton, or $30 billion, discrepancy between the amount of oil that came out of the well head and the amount of oil revenue that was ultimately recovered by Yukos.”

According to Robert Amsterdam, international counsel to Khodorkovsky, the order marks the beginning of “a global evidence-gathering process…necessary because the procuracy of the Russian Federation is not a fact-gatherer but rather, an enforcement arm of a Kremlin bent on consolidating the state theft of Yukos.”

Recently a Swiss federal court ruled that the Russian government’s pursuit of Khodorkovsky was politically motivated and designed to “go after a class of rich oligarchs and push aside . . . political adversaries.”