GAZ minorities file 11.4 bln rbl suit against tycoon Deripaska

MOSCOW, Sep 27 (PRIME) -- The Arbitration Court of the Nizhny Novgorod Region has registered a 11.4 billion ruble suit filed by three affiliates of Prosperity Capital Management – minority owners of Russian carmaker GAZ Group – against tycoon Oleg Deripaska, beneficiary of GAZ, and GAZ CEO Vadim Sorokin.

The matter of the suit, filed by Prosperity Cub Fund, Prosperity Quest Fund, and Russian Prosperity Fund, was not disclosed.

In August, the three companies filed a 11.4 billion ruble suit against Deripaska and Sorokin demanding redemption of losses inflicted by them on GAZ in 2015–2016. But the claimants requested the court to dismiss the suit before consideration, and the court returned the suit on August 24. Materials of the court did not disclose the reason for the dismissal.

In September 2013, three Cyprus-based companies – Lancrenan Investments Limited, Medvezhonok Holdings Limited, and Protsvetaniye Holdings Limited – all parts of Prosperity Capital Management group, filed a suit against top managers of GAZ Group demanding redemption of 491 million rubles of losses of the company.

The three companies thought that GAZ board of directors members inflicted financing damage on the company by voting in 2010 for a sale of a stake in the company to Kazington Limited for 815 million rubles, as they thought the market price of the stake was more than 1.3 billion rubles. Courts of four instances, including the Supreme Court, rejected the suit.

The core owner of GAZ Group is engineering holding Russian Machines, part of Deripaska’s Basic Element, with a 61.05% stake in the company.

(57.5186 rubles – U.S. $1)

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