MOSCOW - Nornickel's largest shareholder Interros said on Thursday it had filed an objection to a London lawsuit brought by fellow shareholder Rusal, alleging that Rusal is attempting to maximise dividends even if doing so is not in Nornickel's best interests.

The long-running dispute between Nornickel CEO Vladimir Potanin, who holds a 37% stake through Interros, and aluminium giant Rusal, which owns 26.4%, intensified at the end of 2022 when a decade-old shareholder pact protecting Nornickel's dividend payouts expired.

Nornickel is the world's largest producer of palladium, which carmakers use in engine exhausts to reduce emissions, and a major miner of refined nickel, used for metallurgy and electric vehicle batteries.

Rusal first filed the lawsuit in 2022, alleging that Potanin had violated their shareholder agreement. It later added more claims, including alleging that Nornickel's employee incentive scheme benefited Potanin at the expense of other shareholders.

Interros repeated that it regarded these claims as unfounded and said in a statement on Thursday that Rusal was seeking to influence Nornickel's dividend policy to solve its own problems.

Rusal said in an emailed comment that it thought Interros was trying to divert attention away from the real substance of the dispute and would further assess the need to respond to Thursday's Interros statement.

"Rusal has always acted and continues to act as a responsible shareholder of Norilsk Nickel," Rusal said.

Nornickel paid around 140-billion roubles ($1.37-billion) in dividends for the first nine months of 2023, at 915.33 roubles per share. It decided not to pay a full-year dividend last year, and has not yet decided on new payments this year.

Interros said Rusal's lawsuit was putting Nornickel in a difficult position in current geopolitical conditions, because it requires the company to disclose sensitive information.

Rusal uses dividends from Nornickel to help service its debt. Rusal's net debt stood at $6.4 billion at the end of the first half of this year.