The court subpoenaed Chevron to provide Khodorkovsky’s lawyers with Yukos due diligence studies.

The judge of San Francisco’s district court upheld the suit by Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s lawyers. In their suit, they had asked the US court to subpoena Chevron oil company to provide the Yukos due diligence studies. Chevron conducted due diligence studies on Yukos in 2003, in the context of the negotiations over the merger of YukosSibneft and ChevronTexaco.

‘The results of the due diligence conducted on Yukos by Chevron in 2003 will become one of the key pieces of evidence proving that Khodorkovsky is innocent of the crimes which the Russian Prosecutor General’s office is accusing him of. According to Russian law, the accused has the right to give the court all evidence of his innocence,’ Khodorovsky’s lawyer, Robert Amsterdam, said. The lawyer maintained that during the due diligence studies conducted on Yukos, Chevron drew the conclusion that the Russian company’s activities were within the law and met western business standards.

‘Chevron was completely satisfied with the due diligence results and continued to carry out merger negotiations even after Khodorkovsky’s arrest. This means that during the due diligence studies on Yukos conducted by Chevron inspectors, nothing illegal was found, and there nothing about theft of all Yukos oil or money laundering from its sale, of which my client is now being accused,’ Amsterdam added.