The Shocking Reason Putin Isn't Worried About The $50 Billion Yukos Ruling -- Zero Hedge
Having $50 billion of assets under potential seizure is enough to make anyone whince.
However, despite a quickly worded statement on the Yukos award, Vladimir Putin seems less than anxious to find a resolution.
We think we know why... and it's very concerning...
As The FT reports confirming our earlier comments...
The award is a landmark not just for its size – 20 times the previous record for an arbitration ruling.
The tribunal also found definitively that Russia’s pursuit of Yukos and its independently-minded main shareholder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a decade ago was politically motivated.
Though Russia cannot appeal against the award, Moscow said it would pursue all legal avenues for trying to get it “set aside”.
Even if the ruling stands, shareholders face a tortuous battle trying to enforce it. If Moscow refuses to pay, they must pursue Russian sovereign commercial assets in the 150 countries that are party to the so-called 1958 New York Convention on enforcing arbitration awards.
Read more ....
More News On The Yukos Ruling
Russia to appeal $50bn Yukos shareholder payout -- BBC
Hague court orders Russia to pay $50 billion in Yukos case -- Reuters
Yukos Shareholders Awarded About $50 Billion in Court Ruling -- NYT
Russia Must Compensate Yukos Shareholders, European Court Rules -- WSJ
Ex-Yukos shareholders awarded compensation -- Deutsche Welle
My Comment: The money quote in this Financial Times report is in the last paragraph ....
.... One person close to Mr Putin said the Yukos ruling was insignificant in light of the bigger geopolitical stand-off over Ukraine. “There is a war coming in Europe,” he said. “Do you really think this matters?”
I would love to know who is the official who made that remark.
9 comments:
1.
Who is the guy saying that there wil be coming war in Europe? Do you know him?
2.
Are there a risk of a coming war in Europe or he just saying it to scare people?
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Sorry to bug you but when can you post about the swedish social unrest?
As I remarked .... I would like to know who made this comment to the Financial Times. The Financial Times does not say who he was.
As to there being a risk of war in Europe .... I do not see it. But there are some who are genuinely worried that such a catastrophe can come to Europe.
Malthus is unfairly maligned or at least misunderstood. He didn't know what he didn't know. Meaning if he saw current technology he would adjust give more qualifiers and express his ideals in rigorous mathematical (economic ) terms.
I would rather have good laws and engineer my way out of things.
But if not, let slip the dogs of war.
Better that than to be lied to by some feckless politician(s) who allows the people of his nation get slaughtered by like sheep before they retreat to their gated communities.
All the pictures out of the Middle East show you do not surrender. Other people are not much better.
WNU,
I just noticed that Shevardnadze had died this month.
Yup .... I met him a few times when he was my boss .... a kinda of hello, shake my hand, and then he goes off.
In the new Russia he is not remembered kindly (the same for Gorbachev) .... which is why he did not receive much press. My feelings toward him has always been ambiguous .... but he was instrumental in lessening tensions between East and West .... and for that we all should be eternally grateful.
You mention the "new" Russia. My impression (though from afar) is that it is as different as night is to day from what I remember.
James .... I visit Russia every year. And every year that I go there everything is different (in Moscow and Saint Petersburg that is). It reminds me of China .... on my last trip there I went to the city of Quanzhou in Fujian Province. I was first based there in the mid 1980s so that is my reference point. OMG!!!! I cannot recognize the place. The old historical buildings are still there .... the centuries old five giant Buddha temple is still there .... the cemetery of one of Mohammad's lieutenants .... it is still there. But everything else has become westernized.
The same goes for the new Russia .... the cities are growing by leaps and bounds .... and my cousins who are in the real estate business .... there is no shortage of growth .... they are building sky scrappers everywhere. But on the outside .... in the countryside and in the old villages .... with the exception of electricity, communications, and clean-water .... life has not changed much in the past few centuries.
As for the politics and culture .... it has changed in ways that even I cannot grasp at times. The Communists are definitely gone ... and in it's place is something that is definitely uniquely Russian. Maybe I will write a book on this subject one day .... someone with a Russian, Western, and Asian perspective .... who also got to know some of the old guard who ran the place (Russia that is) and who also shared their own thoughts and stories with a younger me .... starting with my father.
I think the key word for it would be "energetic", compared to the old "Russia". In that sense it reminds me of the US, say 1890 to 1920. Unless the US wakes back up, I think the future will be Russia and maybe China. I doubt China though, their government is still too rooted in the old Communism mind set. On the other hand if the Russian government can stay out of it's people's way it'll finally lived up to the vast potential prediction I've heard for 50 years.
A senior Russian diplomat once told me that it is unfair to compare Russia and China to the U.S.. As he said .... China and Russia are two very old countries with a culture and social structure that in Russia's case is a thousand years, and in China's case is a few thousand years. But politically .... they are still infants. In Russia's case .... it's political institutions are only 35 years old. In China's .... who knows what they have cobbled together in the past century.
In the case of the U.S. .... it's culture is very young .... but politically .... the U.S. is actually very old. There are only a few other institutions that are just as old .... England, the Swiss canton system, and the Vatican are the three that come to mind. (Canada's parliamentary system is only 150 years old).
If Russia has 200 years of political history under it's belt .... there is a good chance that it will then have a political system that will be a match to the U.S..
As to your 50 year prediction James .... you are probably right. The potential has always been there .... what stopped it has always been stupid and destructive politics.
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