The Russian social contract rests on a tacit agreement between the businessmen and politicians not to talk about their mutual corruption. In Russia’s desperation to roll back history’s biggest arbitration award, this bargain is breaking down.
In July 2014, arbitrators ordered Russia to pay $50 billion to the oligarchs from whom it seized Yukos Oil Co. At a Feb. 8 hearing to set aside this award, Russian counsel Albert Jan van den Berg told the Hague District Court: “If we want to talk about the reality of this case, we have to go back to … the disintegration of the Soviet Union.… A handful of oligarchs were robbing state-owned companies blind.” On April 20, a Dutch court will decide whether “you stole it first” is a valid defense.
