AN INTERNATIONAL arbitration court awarded the former majority shareholder of defunct oil producer Yukos more than £29 billion today in damages against Russia for expropriating the company.

The claim was filed by GML, a financial holding company specialising in asset management for super-rich speculators, the biggest shareholder in Yukos Oil. It had originally sought double that amount.

Former chief executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky had built Yukos into Russia’s largest private oil company after the collapse of the Soviet Union — but the oligarch wasn’t part of the action.

The Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague found that the Russian Federation had sought to bankrupt Yukos and appropriate its assets.

GML executive director Tim Osborne said the ruling represented a major step forward.

“The majority shareholders of Yukos Oil were left without compensation for the loss of their investment when Russia illegally expropriated Yukos,” he said.

“It is a major step forward for the majority shareholders, who have been battling for over 10 years for this decision.”

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: “It goes without saying that Russia and the agencies that represent Russia in this case will use all the legal options it has to uphold its position.”

And energy giant Rosneft, which acquired the assets of Yukos after the jailing of Mr Khodorkovsky, said that it “considers that all its deals in acquiring former Yukos assets and also all its other actions towards Yukos were fully lawful and carried out according to the legislation in force.”

Edited: Yukos was awarded £29 billion, not £29 million as originally printed