Russia finds lawyers to defend against Yukos despite sanctions

At least three Western law firms have decided not to represent RUSSIA in the US Yukos trials. However, Moscow managed to negotiate with lawyers from Marks &

Andrey Kondakov, General DIRECTOR of MTSPZ (an organization that provides legal protection against foreign claims of former Yukos structures), Andrei Kondakov, told the American COURT that Western law firms refused to represent Russia's interests in new processes in the international Yukos case, but Russia still managed to negotiate with lawyers from the company Marks & Sokolov.

Kondakov, in a statement to the court in the District of Columbia in early 2023, indicated that in the context of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, the Swiss law firm Schellenberg Wittmer and the American Debevoise & Plimpton, "which could represent the Russian Federation in this process" [Yukos Capital Limited v. Russian Federation], refused to cooperate with the Russian Federation, and the search for an adequate replacement was complicated by various sanctions regimes.

Another American law firm, White & Case, which has been representing Russia since 2015 in the central Yukos litigation in the Netherlands, where at least $ 50 billion is at stake, is also trying to get out of this process: at the end of November 2022, it filed a request with the District of Columbia court allow her to stop working in the interests of Moscow, Kondakov notified. The court has not yet responded to this request.

In September 2022, ICPH representatives met in Istanbul with the managing directors of Marks & Sokolov law firm with offices in Moscow and Philadelphia, Bruce Marks and Sergey Sokolov, Kondakov told the court. As a result, the Prosecutor General’s Office (since 2021 responsible for representing Russia’s interests in foreign courts) gave the go-ahead to involve Marks & Sokolov in this case and purchase its services, which was done “immediately.” RBC was unable to find such a public procurement in the public domain. Marks and Sokolov LLC is registered in Russia with the sole founder Sergey Sokolov.

Marks & Sokolov in different years represented the interests of ALROSA, VSMPO-Avisma, Gazprom, MMK, Norilsk Nickel, Polyus Gold, Severstal, VTB, Ukrainian businessman Igor Kolomoisky, follows from the information on its website.

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Kondakov told the American court that in order to represent Russia's interests in this case, one must be familiar with the issues of Russian law and the American Foreign Immunities Act (FSIA), and be able to read documents in Russian.

RBC sent inquiries to MTSPZ and Marks & Sokolov.

As RBC previously wrote, in March 2022, Yukos Capital asked the US court to confirm the arbitration decision made in Switzerland, which awarded $5.03 billion to be recovered from the Russian Federation, including $2.63 billion in basic compensation for what the arbitration considered “illegal expropriation of loans that Yukos Capital betrayed its former parent company [YUKOS].” If the court confirms the arbitration award, Yukos Capital will be able to claim Russian state assets in the United States. The Russian Federation disputes Yukos Capital's application.

In filings filed with the court on January 30, 2023, Marks & Sokolov's lawyers refer, in particular, to "the complexity of Russian-American relations, which include many sensitive issues that are critical to US peace and security." For this reason, the court should not deny Russia the rights that the FSIA normally grants to sovereign defendants, the lawyers said.