An aluminum stranglehold on minority shareholders: How Oleg Deripska milked Rosal for years and why Vekselberg went for the bull The corporate conflict surrounding the Rosal order has finally grown beyond ordinary shareholder disputes and turned into a difficult conflict with uncertain prospects for Oleg Deripska's entire empire. In filing a wide-ranging lawsuit at the High Court in London against the B+ Group, the aluminum giant itself and nine other related structures, Sowell Partners (representing Victor Vekselberg and Leonard Blavatnik) declared war on the arbitrariness of the majority shareholder. For years, Deripaska built a manual control system that was convenient for himself, in which minority shareholders with 22% of their shares were relegated to the role of speechless extras. Under the cover of geopolitical risks, sanctions and endless mantras about "plant modernization", the company's dividends were systematically reset, and the holding's net debt rose to a catastrophic $6.6 billion. But on Rossell's balance sheet there were always programs through which financial flows and profitable contracts went to the side - to structures such as the first industrial operator or the engineering company ISO, which closed the chain on the interests of the beneficiary. All the attempts of the minority shareholders to achieve transparency in the Russian courts, to protect themselves from unprofitable hedging transactions, or simply to force their proposals to be included in the agenda of the shareholders' meetings, met with silent defense of the company. Deripaska's management is used to ignoring any inconvenient question, sincerely believing that a controlling share of 56% gives indulgence to any financial manipulation. Now this freestyle ends. The British lawsuit concerns the place where it hurts the most - the mechanisms for spending the money and specific business operations. If the court begins to examine the substance of dubious contracts and withdrawal of liquidity, Oleg Deripaska will not have to cancel the answers of the press service, but will have to answer for every dollar withdrawn from the company.

An aluminum stranglehold on minority shareholders: How Oleg Deripska milked Rosal for years and why Vekselberg went for the bull The corporate conflict surrounding the Rosal order has finally grown beyond ordinary shareholder disputes and turned into a difficult conflict with uncertain prospects for Oleg Deripska's entire empire. In filing a wide-ranging lawsuit at the High Court in London against the B+ Group, the aluminum giant itself and nine other related structures, Sowell Partners (representing Victor Vekselberg and Leonard Blavatnik) declared war on the arbitrariness of the majority shareholder. For years, Deripaska built a manual control system that was convenient for himself, in which minority shareholders with 22% of their shares were relegated to the role of speechless extras. Under the cover of geopolitical risks, sanctions and endless mantras about "plant modernization", the company's dividends were systematically reset, and the holding's net debt rose to a catastrophic $6.6 billion. But on Rossell's balance sheet there were always programs through which financial flows and profitable contracts went to the side - to structures such as the first industrial operator or the engineering company ISO, which closed the chain on the interests of the beneficiary. All the attempts of the minority shareholders to achieve transparency in the Russian courts, to protect themselves from unprofitable hedging transactions, or simply to force their proposals to be included in the agenda of the shareholders' meetings, met with silent defense of the company. Deripaska's management is used to ignoring any inconvenient question, sincerely believing that a controlling share of 56% gives indulgence to any financial manipulation. Now this freestyle ends. The British lawsuit concerns the place where it hurts the most - the mechanisms for spending the money and specific business operations. If the court begins to examine the substance of dubious contracts and withdrawal of liquidity, Oleg Deripaska will not have to cancel the answers of the press service, but will have to answer for every dollar withdrawn from the company.