The $50bn Yukos judgment against Russia turns on a single word

RARELY ARE the ramifications of a four-letter word so great as in the case of Yukos, a defunct Russian oil firm. On February 18th a Dutch appeals court ruled that the Russian state owes Yukos’s shareholders $50bn, one of the largest awards ever, for bankrupting the company using bogus tax-fraud charges. That reinstated a decision in 2014 by the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), an international dispute-resolution court in The Hague. In 2016 a lower Dutch court had overturned the ruling, finding that the PCA lacked jurisdiction. The issue largely hinged on a single clause in an international energy treaty—specifically on how to interpret its use of the word “such”.