The reputation of PwC, one of the world’s biggest audit firms, will be under scrutiny in a Moscow court this week as lawyers for Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, the jailed former owners of the Yukos oil group, make a final stand against embezzlement charges.

Mr Lebedev, a co-founder of Mr Khodorkovsky’s business empire, is expected to testify on Tuesday that PwC withdrew Yukos audits from 1996 to 2006 under pressure from the Kremlin. This allowed prosecutors to build their case that he and Mr Khodorkovsky had embezzled 350m tonnes of oil from Yukos between 1998 and 2003.

PwC’s withdrawal of the audits in June 2007 followed a police raid on its Moscow office, a criminal investigation and court cases against the firm that threatened its licence to operate in the fast-growing market.