Yukos Pays Back

Russia's oil company Yukos decided on
Tuesday to try to raise money to repay $3.4 billion in back taxes for the year 2000, the company's lawyer Dmitri Gololobov said.

Yukos spokesman Alexander Shadrin told Interfax news agency that "earnings gained from the company's production operations will be used in the first place to repay the company's tax debt."

Yukos has said paying the tax demand would force it into bankruptcy as the company's assets have been frozen by an earlier court ruling and it would thus be unable to raise enough cash in time to pay the taxes.