Robert Amsterdam

Robert Amsterdam is quoted in today’s Telegraph in a piece on the situation now facing foreign investors in Russia. Vladimir Putin’s comments on Mechel have alerted investors, the article says, to the “Yukos risk” and its “mockery of justice”.

Robert Amsterdam, Mr Khodorkovsky's lawyer, said there is probably an ulterior motive behind the latest wave of probes. "We have reached a point in Russia where nothing can be treated as a one-off affair. There is a systemic raiding-mechanism directed by the top," he said.

"These types of attacks are usually combined with 'short-trading' by people inside the government, or they are a hard-ball tactic for extracting contracts. More broadly, I think foreign investors need to ask themselves whether they can trust the audited books of any company in Russia. It is impossible to conduct an independent audit," he said.

Read the full article here.