LONDON, (Reuters) – Britain’s court of appeal ruled on Friday that Russian entrepreneur Michael Cherney may sue Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska in Britain over a disputed stake in Russian aluminium company UC RUSAL, Cherney said.
“I am pleased that after several years of Mr Deripaska refusing to accept that England was the appropriate place for our dispute to be resolved, the Court of Appeal in England has very strongly endorsed last year’s ruling that England is indeed the right venue,” Cherney said in a statement.
Deripaska’s lawyers wanted the case heard in Russia, arguing that it was the natural jurisdiction, but lawyers for Cherney have said their client’s life and freedom would be at risk in Russia and any trial there would be unfair.
“We do not believe it is the place of the English courts to be ruling on matters that, by their own admission, should fall under Russian law and jurisdiction, nor making pejorative claims about other countries’ legal systems,” a spokesman for Deripaska said in a statement.
