WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Roger Wicker, R-Miss., today issued the following statement after the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled that the Russian government must pay Yukos shareholders more than $50 billion in compensation for the government’s seizure of the company:

“The Court’s decision supports what I have said all along: President Putin and his cronies should have to pay for their politically-motivated and illegal seizure of Yukos – a privately owned company. This ruling represents a major step in delivering justice for Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Platon Lebedev, as well as Yukos’ shareholders. The judgment also lays bare Russia’s clear track record of reckless disregard for the democratic rule of law.”

In 2003, Russian authorities arrested Mr. Khodorkovsky and initiated the process of dismantling his main asset, Yukos Oil. Once Russia's largest oil company, Yukos was forced to declare bankruptcy in August 2006, when it could not pay claimed back taxes. After a series of auctions, the company’s remaining assets fell into the hands of the state-owned company, Rosneft. On November 22, 2007, Russia's Federal Tax Service announced it had completed Yukos’ bankruptcy procedure and that the company had ceased to exist as a legal entity.

The Wall Street Journal reports, “Although Russian officials maintain the case was purely a matter of tax evasion, the destruction of Yukos was widely viewed as the Kremlin's effort to crush Mr. Khodorkovsky, the company's politically ambitious chief executive officer and main shareholder, who served more than 10 years in jail for fraud and tax evasion – charges widely criticized as politically motivated.”