When $50 billion has been awarded on the main claim in a litigation, tidying up the dispute's edges can be lucrative.

On March 31—eight months after a Hague tribunal concluded that the Russian Federation raided the assets of OAO Yukos Oil Company and owes $50.02 billion to the defunct company's majority shareholders—Yukos' minority shareholders struck a high-profile but rather murky settlement with Rosneft Oil Company. What exactly happened or didn't happen?

Dutch foundations established by Yukos's management in exile are sitting on close to $2 billion in former Yukos assets. (Over the years they've wrested from Yukos' carcass a pipeline in Slovakia, a refinery in Lithuania, and a $420 million bond posted by Rosneft in London to satisfy an old award.) The catch is that minority shareholders of Yukos couldn't touch any of this kitty so long as Rosneft kept pushing its claim in Dutch courts that it bought Yukos's offshore assets in bankruptcy.