MOSCOW, December 28 - RAPSI. The court on Tuesday upheld a former shareholder's lawsuit to recover a total of $54.7 million from the share registrar and major chemicals producer, the company reported on Wednesday.

The report says Uralkali will consider its ongoing defense options after it receives the complete transcript of the judgment from the Perm Territory Commercial Court.
According to the report its shareholder Anatoly Lomakin filed a claim in January 2011 against Computershare Registrator (the share registrar) and Silvinit over an unlawful writing-off of 61,980 Silvinit shares from his account as a result of fraud committed by an unidentified person. Lomakin estimated his losses at 1.7 billion rubles ($54.7 million).

After its merger with Silvinit, Russia's largest potassium chloride producer, in the second quarter of 2011, Uralkali became the world's number-one potassium chloride producer.

Lomakin was a partner of Pyotr Kondrashov, former Silvinit CEO. They jointly held a controlling share in Silvinit.