Potanin has filed a suit which is not aimed at a rightful division of the property with his wife - the client of the Law firm

Philipp Ryabchenko commented as follows:

Potanin has applied to Presnensky district court with the lawsuit on the family property division.

In the said lawsuit Potanin insists that only the property that was acquired by the spouses before 2007shall be subject to division.

The suit is made very scrupulously, there are specified bank accounts, some of which are less than 100 Euros, land plots, the largest of which 16 hundred square meters, and the like. At the same time factual assets are not specified in the lawsuit.

It follows from the above that the suit may have several goals, and none of them is related to the fair division of the family property.

In our opinion, the true goal of filing the lawsuit by Potanin in such a hurry is an attempt to establish the Russian jurisdiction, create the appearance of a generous offer from the husband and to establish legally relevant facts.

We cannot agree on any item and will insist on the fair division, although it will be extremely difficult, despite the clearness of the case.

Already at the first sitting on the case of divorce, we faced the selective justice and the obvious inequality of parties in the proceeding.

As is known, all the assets from the beginning to the present time are hidden in offshore jurisdictions.

In Russia, there is a process of deoffshorization , which is supported by the President, but the Russian courts yet reluctantly see and recognize the real owner of the assets behind the corporate veil.