Nevzlin "very pleased" with Hague court ruling on Yukos

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Leonid Nevzlin, the biggest ultimate beneficial owner of defunct oil giant Yukos, expressed satisfaction with the Hague's arbitration court ruling that Russia must pay a group of shareholders around $50 billion for expropriating its assets. "I am very pleased the international tribunal in the Hague decided that Russia violated international laws and illegally expropriated Yukos," the Russian-born Nevzlin said in an emailed statement on Monday. Nevzlin, a business partner who had fled to Israel to avoid prosecution, has a stake of around 70 percent. The Hague court said it had awarded shareholders in the GML group just under half of their $114 billion claim, going some way to covering the money they lost when the Kremlin seized Yukos, once controlled by Mikhail Khodorkovsky. (Reporting by Tova Cohen)