Vladimir Putin once again proved that he is amazingly well informed about the YUKOS case, even better informed than the Prosecutor General's Office. During his live interactive linkup with the people on Thursday, the Prime Minister recapped the charges against the company's former security chief, Alexei Pichugin, convicted of organizing several murders. He definitely acted "in the interests of and on instructions from his masters," Putin said. Of late, Putin has more and more often linked Khodorkovsky to these murders, but he has never before gone into such detail. Last week Putin had one more reason to be angry. Perhaps he was vexed by the success of the former YUKOS shareholders - Mikhail Brudno, Leonid Nevzlin and others - at the UN Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague. The owners of Group Menatep Limited (GML) which formerly owned the company, filed a law suit against the Russian state back in 2005 accusing it of "expropriating" their property. At first they claimed $28.3 billion in damages, but later increased the sum to $100 billion. The plaintiffs invoked Article 13 of the Energy Charter Treaty, which protects investors against unreasonable claims by governments. Russia has signed but not ratified the Treaty which, it said, was unacceptable in its present shape. But it complied with the terms of the charter on a temporary basis. Moscow withdrew from that regime in October and seemed to have no links with the charter any more. However, last Monday the court decided that Khodorkovsky's former partners had legal grounds to sue the government. Under one of the articles in the Treaty even if a country ceases to comply with the provisions of the Charter, claims to it over disputes arising prior to that date remain valid for the following 20 years, in Russia's case, until 2029. It is unlikely that the Hague Court's ruling will cost Russia $100 billion or even a smaller sum. Substantive consideration still lies ahead and will take years. "The plaintiffs have the burden of proof that expropriation had indeed taken place. This is not easy: all the cases connected with tax claims are considered very carefully by Western courts and payment of tax is sacred," says former deputy secretary general of the Energy Charter secretariat, Andrei Konoplyanik. So, the financial threat is not great. However, Russia's image has been damaged. But it would be wrong to put all the blame on the Charter. Actually, Konoplyanik points out, it is a useful document that gives Russia some say in working out the rules of the game in the European market. Instead of distancing itself from its partners under the Charter Russia should engage them in a more active dialogue.
Andrei Litvinov