MOSCOW, February 21 - RAPSI, Sergei Feklyunin. A regional commercial court has submitted for reconsideration to the first-instance court lawsuit of Rusal demanding that Norilsk Nickel provide documents about the company's business activity.
The lower courts' judicial acts were dismissed.
The Krasnoyarsk Territory Commercial Court fully satisfied Rusal's claim in March 2011 and obliged Norilsk Nickel to deliver to the plaintiff all the requested documents, including accounting records concerning metal supplies for export and the domestic market, insurance policies, and all the minutes of the 2009-2010 management board meetings. The ruling was later challenged.
The third commercial court of appeals partially satisfied Norilsk Nickel's appeal in November 2011. It changed the lower-court decision, and excluded those documents that did not deal with business accounting from the list of documents to be provided to the shareholder.
Rusal, the world's largest aluminum producer, holds the controlling stake in Norilsk Nickel. Rusal said in court that its legitimate interest in the documents rests in its need to check Norilsk Nickel management's good faith. Rusal argues that the documents will let it appraise their efficiency and the company's financial condition.
Norilsk Nickel is the world's largest nickel producer (18 percent of the worldwide output) and palladium producer (nearly 50 percent of the worldwide output).
The company is also a leading platinum producer (about 13 percent of the worldwide output) and copper producer (about 2.5 percent of the worldwide output). The company also produces cobalt, chrome, rhodium, silver, iridium, ruthenium, selenium, tellurium and sulfur.