Big four firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)’s future in Russua hangs in the balance after a Moscow Court decided to drop PwC’s appeal case against a court ruling that it had colluded with Yukos, the bankrupt oil company, to produce false audits.

The Moscow appeal court said it could not continue the hearings because Yukos, the co-defendant, had been liquidated, leaving PwC in limbo after months of pressure from the Russian government.

PwC said it was considering ways to contest the ruling. Dmitry Gololobov, a former senior Yukos lawyer now living in London, said Moscow was unlikely to revoke PwC's licence because it audits 30% of Russia's stock market, including some of its biggest blue chips.

PwC said it believed the prosecutors' findings would stand it in good stead. But Mr Gololobov said PwC's operations remained under some degree of threat. ‘This court decision will continue to exist in some parallel dimension and it can be used against them any time,’ he said. ‘It's now a question of whether this will be used for political ends.’

Further reading:

Corruption mounts in Russian businesses

Russia expands lawsuit against PwC over Yukos involvement

Read story in The Financial Times