Russian court rejects Yukos shareholder compensation

MOSCOW – Russia’s constitutional Court says a European ruling to pay nearly 1.9 billion euros ($2 billion) in compensation to shareholders of the defunct Yukos oil company cannot be enforced.

The decision was a setback for investors in the long-running, politically charged dispute over the company that once was Russia’s largest oil producer. Shareholders contend that Moscow used tax claims to seize control of Yukos in 2003 and silence its head, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an opponent of President Vladimir Putin who had begun to use his wealth to fund opposition parties.

Khodorkovsky was imprisoned for a decade.

In 2015, Russia passed a law saying that its constitution superseded rulings by the European Court of Human Rights. The Russian court on Thursday said the ECHR ruling violated the constitution.