LONDON (Reuters) -Russian oligarch Vladimir Potanin’s ex-wife on Tuesday urged a London appeal court to let her pursue a multi-billion dollar share of his stake in Nornickel, in potentially one of the highest-value divorce cases ever brought.
Potanin – CEO of Norilsk Nickel, the world’s largest palladium producer and a major producer of refined nickel – is facing the mammoth divorce claim from ex-wife Natalia Potanina.
Potanina wants to bring a claim for financial relief following their formal divorce in 2014, which includes a claim for 50% of the value of her ex-husband’s ultimate beneficial interest in shares in Nornickel.
Potanin holds a roughly 39% stake in Nornickel through his Interros holding company, which is currently worth $9.4 billion, according to LSEG data.
Potanina is also seeking 50% of any dividends paid to Potanin since 2014 and a high-end Russian property, on which the parties spent around $150 million.
Her lawyers say she received only $41.5 million after their divorce, amounting to less than 1% of the couple’s total assets, and is entitled to “a fair share of the assets built up during the marriage”.
Potanin, however, says his ex-wife received around $84 million and argues her claim should be rejected as the couple had no connection to Britain.
His lawyer Edward Faulks said in court filings that Potanina’s “first contact with England and Wales following the breakdown of her marriage was to contact English divorce lawyers”.
England and Wales has long been seen as a favourable jurisdiction by less wealthy partners, with courts regularly making awards running into the hundreds of millions of pounds.
London’s High Court rejected Potanina’s bid to bring a claim in 2019, with a judge saying that if her claim was allowed to proceed “then there is effectively no limit to divorce tourism”.
The case has since been to the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court, which sent it back to the Court of Appeal to decide whether Potanina’s claim can proceed.
(Reporting by Sam Tobin; Editing by Jan Harvey)
