LONDON (Reuters) -Russian oligarch Vladimir Potanin’s ex-wife can pursue a multi-billion dollar share of his stake in Nornickel, London’s Court of Appeal ruled on Thursday, allowing potentially one of the highest-value divorce cases ever brought to continue.
Potanin, the chief executive of Norilsk Nickel, the world’s largest palladium producer and a major producer of refined nickel – is facing a mammoth divorce claim from his 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 currently holds a 37% stake in the company, which is valued at nearly $9 billion, according to MOEX data.
His ex-wife 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, less than 1% of the couple’s total assets, after their divorce in the Russian courts, though Potanin said his ex-wife received about $84 million and argued the couple had no connection to Britain.
London’s High Court originally 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”.
But on Thursday the Court of Appeal overturned that decision, saying she had very largely severed her ties with Russia and was entitled to bring her claim.
“The discrepancy between her award of the marital assets and the husband’s retained share was significant; the discrepancy between what she had recovered in Russia compared with what she would have recovered had the case been heard in this jurisdiction was equally significant,” the court ruling said.
Potanina’s lawyer Frances Hughes said her client was delighted that the court had recognised the merits of her case.
“She very much hopes that her case can now be resolved and can be concluded without further delay,” she said in a statement.
(Reporting by Michael Holden and Sam Tobin, editing by William James and Ros Russell)
