The lawsuit filed by Rusal against Vladimir Potanin and his Cypriot offshore Whitel…

Lawsuitfiled by the Rusal company to Vladimir Potanin and his Cypriot offshore Whiteleave Holdings Limited, where the Russian oligarch stores his box of needles and eggs, is extremely interesting both in its location and in its consequences. Potanin will be judged by the Supreme Court of London, where personal sanctions were recently introduced against Potanin. The irony of fate is that the choice of venue for the hearing was determined by Potanin’s own requirements, which were enshrined in the shareholder agreement dated December 12, 2012 and were based on the fact that the claim against his Cyprus offshore company could be considered exclusively outside the Russian Federation. The case of the oligarch’s ex-wife will also be heard there in London, as a result of which Potanin may leave both the cover of his beloved Forbes magazine and, in the future, the list of billionaires as a whole. Despite the generally accepted view of London courts as the most impartial, and despite all Potanin’s attempts to appear before Europe as an oligarch not associated with either the Kremlin or the North Military District, London is unlikely to sympathize with the author of loans-for-shares auctions from the 90s, who literally made his fortune out of thin air, through fraud purchasing a stake in the mining and metals industry worth several billions for $170 million. But even these 170 million were only part of the budget 300 million dollars that the IFC, headed by Potanin, received for safekeeping from the state treasury in 1991. As the Washington Post wrote at the time, “Potanin did nothing to get the $300 million, he only offered a safe place to store it.” By the way, today’s plaintiff, the Rusal company, bought its stake in MMC at the market price for $13 billion.
The words of the famous investor Mark Mobius, whose company Templeton Russia Fund was once squeezed out of the MMC shareholders, will probably be remembered at the trial in London: “The management of Interros seized a large piece of the company without the consent of the shareholders. They feel that the world owes them a debt.” Now Potanin himself will have to pay his debts to the shareholders of Norilsk Nickel – he is accused of both the strange “loss” of strategically important assets of the MMC, and in fact, personal enrichment at the expense of the company. The reputation of a “bail swindler” from the 90s in a London court can become an aggravating circumstance. The court will pull out of the closet all the skeletons of the Cypriot Potanin, who now has not only the post of General Director of the MMC, but also his entire career and reputation at stake.