Introduction

Few things can concentrate the mind as much as an award of $50 billion dollars. When the three parallel awards in the Yukos dispute were released in mid-2014, Transnational Dispute Management (and OGEL) therefore immediately called for papers to comprise a Special Issue. We are privileged that Rudolf Hennecke and Kristina Machulskaya, Borzu Sabahi and Diora Ziyaeva, Maria Davies, Ruth Teitelbaum, James Boykin and Malic Havalic, Wojciech Sadowski and Sophie Nappert have each answered our call with well-considered, thoughtful commentary.

Our range of topics has included discussions of the legal aspects and computation of the record-setting damages award (by Sabahi & Ziyaeva and by Nappert) and the attention-getting rulings in the arbitrations on contributory fault (Sadowski), the treatment in the Awards of the Russian tax regime (Teitelbaum), and the acceptance by the tribunal of illegally-obtained evidence (Boykin & Havalic). Moreover, our authors consider the terms on which the Yukos awards may be enforced in Russia (Hennecke & Machulskaya) and in England (Davies).

We have "advance published" those very useful papers, to assure TDM and OGEL readers access to timely observations on various aspects of the largest international arbitration awards we have yet to see. And we are now presenting these papers formally as our Special Issue on the Yukos Awards. We are also glad to republish as part of this Special Issue papers by Herfried Wöss and Adriana San Román Rivera and by the undersigned on the damages aspects of the Yukos Awards. Given the size and nature of the Awards, we cannot devote too much attention to the issue of compensation.

Whether practitioner or scholar, public or private, we trust you find these papers to be the best available source for reliable and useful comments on these Awards. Our privilege in publishing these authors is your benefit in reading their work.