The decision further extends what already has been a yearslong legal battle between Russia and former Yukos shareholders. It quashed a lower court ruling, effectively setting aside a $50 billion award made to the former shareholders in 2014 and sending the case to another court in Amsterdam to consider Russian claims that the shareholders committed fraud in the original arbitration hearings.
The Russian prosecutor-general's office welcomed the ruling but said "it is regrettable" the high court didn't dismiss the award outright. Khodorkovsky was arrested at gunpoint in 2003 and spent more than a decade in prison as Yukos' main assets were sold to a state-owned company. Yukos ultimately went bankrupt.
The Dutch Supreme Court ruled Friday that a lower appeals court in The Hague wrongly dismissed -- on procedural grounds -- Russia's claim that "shareholders committed fraud in the arbitral proceedings."