Cherney: "Deripaska Earmarked $200 Million to the War Against Me"

Classified Polnews

by David Waldman

Michael Cherney (Mikhail Chernoy) the Israeli tycoon who was one of the founders of RusAl, a Russian aluminum giant, is currently suing his ex-partner Oleg Deripaska in London for 20% their company's shares. The high stakes lawsuit (various experts estimate Cherney's share to be between 3 and 6 billion dollars) has led to the ex-partners trading serious allegations, which have been aired mainly in the Russian media.

Poland

Last week it was reported in the Russian media that there was an alleged attempt on the life of reporter Andrei Kalitin in Moscow. Kalitin claims that the cause of the alleged attack was his new project; a book on Michael Cherney. In response Cherney issued a statement claiming that the alleged attack is a hoax intended to attract public attention to the reporter's slanderous book commissioned against Cherney by Oleg Deriapska. Cherney claims that after he filed a suit against Deripaska in London's High Court in November of 2006, Deripaska instructed RusAl's multi-leveled security service to launch an international campaign to discredit Cherney, and that $200 million were earmarked for this purpose. It is alleged that Deripaska, using intermediaries, has hired Diligence LLC, an investigation company based in Washington, DC which has been accused of having its employees impersonate CIA and MI-5 officers. In Israel, where Cherney resides, Deripaska's people allegedly hired a local private investigation company to follow Cherney and his lawyers, and then stage a "dry run" assassination on Cherney. This was immediately leaked to the media with the intention of intimidating Cherney. In Russia, a number of politicians and journalists with alleged ties to Deripaska have used the media to open a criminal investigations into Cherney's activities in Russia during the early 1990s. Russian law enforcement agencies have dismissed these calls as unsubstantiated.

Recently Cherney has called on Deripaska, through the media, to agree to arbitration in any third country and resolve their differences at the negotiations table, instead of using loopholes to dodge the hearings while continuing to waste money on smear campaigns.

Analysts in the metals business say that if indeed Deripaska is behind the attacks on the legality of Cherney's starting capital, which was the basis of RusAl, then he is doing a disservice to his own company. By making these accusations, Deripaska is basically admitting that UC RusAl, which is about to have an IPO on the London Exchange, is nothing but a money laundering operation. Moreover, Deripaska's partners in the merger, Sual and Glencore and bankers like EBRD, are increasingly embarrassed by the unsettled litigation between Cherney and Deripaska. This is understandable, as Cherney's claims imply that they have become accomplices in the theft of his shares.