EXCLUSIVE – The £15 BILLION divorce: London’s High Court to stage battle over fortune of Russia’s second-richest man as former wife of metal tycoon Vladimir Potanin demands a third of his wealth

• Natalia Potanina, 58, is seeking a £5 billion payout from her estranged husband in London’s High Court
• She and her oligarch former husband Vladimir Potanin, 58, have already divorced in Moscow
• But the jilted mother-of-two, who was awarded £5million in Moscow but now lives in London, wants a bigger slice of the metal magnate’s fortune 
• She is pursuing her husband of 30 years – one of Vladimir Putin’s ‘Reds to Riches’ tycoons – from the fall of the Soviet Union for a third of his £15bn fortune
• Potanin, who claims he’s only a millionaire and lives on £300k-a-month, has hired divorce queen Fiona Shackleton to keep his former wife away from his cash

Natalia Potanina is seeking a £5bn payout from her ex-husband in London’s High Court

A £15 billion divorce – the biggest ever staged in Britain – is to be heard at the High Court after a Russian oligarch’s estranged wife brought the battle to London to demand a third of his fortune, MailOnline can reveal.

Tycoon Vladimir Potanin – Russia’s second richest man – defeated his ex-wife in a long-running legal dispute in Moscow, but now she is bringing her huge financial claim to Britain – and he has turned to queen of the divorce courts Fiona Shackleton to keep her away from his money.

Jilted Natalia Potanina, 58, who has lived in London for several years, is likely to argue the Russian legal system was biased against her and in favour of her powerful former spouse, the father of her three grown up children. 

She is now using the English courts to pursue her alimony demands against her ex-husband who made his fortune in metals following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Potanin’s wealth is estimated to be £15bn by Bloomberg, although the 58-year-old magnate claimed in court in Moscow that he is nowhere near as rich.

Sources in Russia claim she will demand £5.76bn in London, although her legal team has not commented on the case.

The ex-wife has claimed in an interview with MailOnline metals giant Nornickel CEO Potanin ‘dumped, betrayed and humiliated’ her after starting a relationship with an employee 15 years his junior with whom he had a love child.

He has hired legendary divorce specialist Baroness Shackleton – dubbed the ‘Steel Magnolia’ for her charm and tough negotiating skills – to defend him.

Tycoon Vladimir Potanin – Russia’s second richest man – defeated his ex-wife Natalia in a long-running legal dispute in Moscow, but now she is bringing her huge financial claim to Britain

Jilted Natalia, who has lived in London for several years, is likely to argue the Russian legal system was biased against her and in favour of her powerful former spouse (above)

Sources in Russia claim Natalia – who has three children with metal magnate Potanin – will demand £5.76bn in London, although her legal team has not commented on the case

Mrs Potanina is deploying Charles Howard QC in the English courts to lead her case which concerns the division of property after their 31 year marriage.

Speaking from her London home, she told MailOnline: ‘It’s a complicated matter that will be settled in the courts of London.

Potanin has hired legendary divorce specialist Fiona Shackleton (above) – dubbed the ‘Steel Magnolia’ for her charm and tough negotiating skills – to defend him

‘This is my private life and I’m trying to sort it out. It’s in the hands of my lawyers.’

Baroness Shackleton, 63, who has previously represented royals Prince Charles and Prince Andrew after their marital breakdowns, is expected to argue that the case should be thrown out.

She will argue that the divorce has already been heard once in Moscow and despite Mrs Potanina now living in the UK, it involves two Russian citizens and has no place in the English courts.

Last year Shackleton was successful in an alternative argument when she won £453 million for Russian oil and gas oligarch’s wife Tatiana Akhmedova against her husband Farhad Akhmedov in the UK’s largest-ever divorce settlement.

She is currently representing Princess Haya bint Hussein – one of six wives of the ruler of Dubai – in her matrimonial battle with husband Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum .

Her other prominent clients included comedian David Walliams.

The fact that Britain has become the go-to venue for a number of high-profile Russian divorce cases where wives can expect bigger payouts has brought criticism in the Soviet media, which portrays Shackleton as ‘Old Woman Shapoklyak’ – a Soviet-era fictional baddie.

‘Over this process looms the shadow of ‘Old Woman Shapoklyak’ Fiona Shackleton, but, with a fundamental difference. Now she will be on the side of Vladimir Potanin,’ reported apn.ru

‘What about principles, like the struggle for the rights of oppressed women?’

Another report is scathing about Mrs Potanina’s move to bring the divorce case to the UK.

The Potanins divorced in Russia in 2014 after their long marriage when she was reported to have received a settlement of £5.5 million, a fraction of what she is now reportedly claiming

Mrs Potanina is deploying Charles Howard QC in the English courts to lead her case which concerns the division of property after their 31 year marriage. she contends their marriage was crucial to her former husband’s rise as one of the most prominent Reds-to-Riches tycoons

‘Having used all opportunities that exist in Russia, Natalia rather cynically decided to try to conduct her divorce proceedings in London, hoping that here she would be able to sue billions from her ex-husband,’ stated wek.ru

The Potanins divorced in Russia in 2014 after their long marriage when she was reported to have received a settlement of £5.5 million, a fraction of what she is now reportedly claiming.

She has told how Potainin asked her for a divorce over tea in 2013, claiming he called for their settlement to be backdated to 2007.

‘I thought this was some kind of a badly-worded tease, a joke,’ she told MailOnline.

‘How else would you look at it?

‘I sat with him at the end of 2013, and he was saying ‘Let’s divorce behind, so that the divorce and any settlement is dated to 2007.’

Pictures on Potanin’s luxury yachts prove they were a couple at the time he claimed they had already split, she said.

She contends their marriage was crucial to his rise as one of the most prominent Reds-to-Riches tycoons.

Three years ago she told MailOnline she was being ‘tortured’ by her former husband into living apart from her youngest son, then 17, who like an ‘orphan’, and her ailing mother, then 97, who both desperately needed her.

At the same time she claimed he saddled her with technical debts that meant if she returned to her homeland, she could be prevented from leaving again, a claim he has never directly responded to.

‘I need to get back to Moscow, but I cannot without becoming a hostage there,’ she said in an extraordinary exclusive interview.

In their Russian legal dispute she argued that her husband was worth considerably more than his headline wealth, while at one point he claimed that he was no longer a billionaire, and was down to his last millions, living on a salary of £300,000 a month.

Three years ago Mrs Potinina told MailOnline she was being ‘tortured’ by her ex-husband into living apart from her youngest son and her ailing mother, then 97, who both needed her

Potanin has moved on with his second wife Ekaterina with whom he has two children. His former wife said he told her he wanted a divorce in 2013 and that he wanted it backdated to 2007, when his assets were smaller than they are today

She alleged he secreted his vast wealth out of her reach in a complex web of offshore companies while pleading to judges in Moscow that he has virtually no assets.

Potanin has held that he does not directly own companies that are often linked to him.

She has argued that she should be entitled to half of the dividends from the shares, even if she cannot have the shares themselves, reported Russian legal agency RAPSI.

In Moscow she unsuccessfully sought to persuade a court to recognise as common property shares in foreign companies Pharanco, Bektanco, Decoso and Lovenco, as well as rights to trustee shares of these entities.

She also wanted to divide rights for shares in metals giant Nornickel and precious metals producer Polyus, and to collect compensation for the stakes from Potanin.

Potanin’s Interros Group has regularly said that it ‘never gives any comments on the circumstances of the company founder’s private life’.

Baroness Shackleton was approached by MailOnline for comment on the case.

Potanin has three children from his marriage to Natalia, and two from his second marriage to current wife Ekaterina.

Last year he gave away his heiress daughter Anastasia, 35, when she wed dancer Artyom Kruchin – ten years her junior – in a sumptuous ceremony at Cap-Eden-Roc hotel on the Côte d’Azur.

Pictures and video did not show Anastasia’s mother attending the wedding.

Anastasia is a former Russian acquabike champion and now a contemporary art gallery owner in Moscow.

Anastasia has not spoken of her parents’ acrimonious split but has remained close to her father.

Her brothers are believed to be close to their mother. 

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