YUKOSYUKOS (Ю́КОС) is a petroleum company in Russia, controlled by Russian billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky and a number of prominent Russian businessmen. Yukos is one of the world's largest non-state oil companies. It was acquired in controversial circumstances from the Russian Government during the privatization process of the early 1990s. In April 2003, Yukos agreed to a merger with Sibneft, but the merger was soon undone in the aftermath of the arrest of Yukos CEO Khodorkovsky in October, 2003. The high-profile arrest of Khodorkovsky is widely believed to have been due to his activism in the Russian political process. Shortly thereafter, on October 31, the Russian government froze ownership of 44% of the companies shares. The reason given was to prevent them from them being sold by a group of major shareholders led by Khodorkovsky. Recently in July, Yukos has been charged with tax evasion in the amount of over 7 billion dollars. Apparently the charges have been accepted by the company and in order to prevent bankruptcy its management has made a friendly offer to the government to pay 8 billion dollars in a period of three years. See alsoExternal linksfr:Ioukos ru:ЮКОС nl:Yukos de:Jukos |
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