Publication

This paper addresses the rise and fall of the Russian oil company Yukos and of its jailed head Mikhail Khodorkovsky. It summarizes the company's privatization in the 1990s as well as its growing importance in the Russian oil market and reviews the course of the Yukos affair that led to its divestiture based on criminal allegations. Subsequently, the paper takes a closer look at the companies that acquired Yukos' main assets and comments on its struggle for survival and criminal prosecution against some of its former executives.