A sanctioned Russian businessman has won a Supreme Court appeal over a money fight with his ex-wife, but legal issues remain in his bid to avoid what could become the highest-value divorce case in English history.
Vladimir Potanin, estimated to be worth around 20 billion US dollars (£15.7 billion), wanted to overturn a Court of Appeal decision allowing Natalia Potanina to bring a multibillion-pound claim against him in London.
Lawyers for the billionaire took his bid to stop Mrs Potanina’s claim going ahead at a Supreme Court hearing in the capital in October, arguing that Mr Potanin faced “prolonged litigation” in the English courts which are “renowned for their generosity” in cases of this kind.
Mrs Potanina’s legal team said the Court of Appeal took the correct approach and that she had “earned her share” of the family’s wealth after years of marriage.
Appeal judges were previously told that Mrs Potanina is seeking around £5 billion from her ex-husband following the breakdown of their marriage.
In a majority ruling on Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled in Mr Potanin’s favour and concluded that the Court of Appeal’s stance on an earlier procedural issue was “wrong in law”.
But Lord Leggatt, with whom Lord Lloyd-Jones and Lady Rose agreed, sent the case back to the Court of Appeal to consider other legal issues that have yet to be resolved.
Lord Leggatt said questions about when it could be appropriate for an English court to make financial orders “in a case involving foreign parties whose connections with this country are slight and whose dispute has already been heavily litigated in a foreign court appear ripe for consideration by this court”.
He added: “But such consideration must await a case in which the issues actually arise from the decision under appeal.”
Mr Potanin and Mrs Potanina, both in their early 60s, wed in Russia in 1983, where they lived throughout their married life, and have three adult children.
The businessman claims the pair separated in 2007, with a Russian court granting a divorce in 2014.
But Mrs Potanina argues that they did not separate until 2013 when their marriage “ended suddenly”.