VB Development, a development and construction subsidiary of Russia’s largest e-commerce operator Wildberries, has filed a RUB37bn ($0.4bn) lawsuit against its main beneficiary Vladislav Bakalchuk in the Arbitration Court of the Moscow Region, Vedomosti daily reports.

As followed in detail by bne IntelliNews, Wildberries is rocked by controversy surrounding a merger deal with Russ Group, an outdoor advertising operator that is a tenth of the size of Wildberries. The founder and CEO of the company Tatiana Kim (ex-Bakalchuk) is getting divorced from husband Vladislav Bakalchuk, who has turned to Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov for help.

In a violent development of the ongoing divorce proceedings, last month week two people were killed in a shootout as Vladislav tried to storm the offices of the country's largest e-commerce operator.

As a reminder, VB Development is constructing the warehouses for Wildberries, is 100% owned by Bakalchuk, but still being a business unit of the parent company.

The lawsuit was brought against Bakalchuk personally in connection with the losses incurred by VB Development, a source familiar with the contents of the court application told Vedomosti. Previously Kim claimed that Balalchuk and his team have syphoned RUB37bn out of the company, frozen all construction projects and jeopardised the entire business.

The claim is probably based on the fact that Bakalchuk illegally allowed the advance payment for the construction of warehouses to be transferred to companies under his control, and therefore committed an embezzlement, lawyers surveyed by Vedomosti suggest. 

As a reminder, since day one, the e-commerce major has been managed by its founder and the richest woman in Russia, Tatiana Kim, who holds 99% in the company, and her husband, Vladislav Bakalchuk, who only owns 1%. But Vladislav Bakalchuk claims as there was no prenuptial agreement or marriage contract between the pair, all of the assets should actually be split 50:50, as per Russian divorce laws.

In the meantime unconfirmed reports claim that Dagestan senator and controversial billionaire Suleiman Kerimov is behind the merger of Russ and Wildberries, with two main interpretations of the merger emerging. According to one of them, "Tatiana fell in love, and her love has something to do with Russ," unnamed sources close to Bakalchuk told Forbes.

Other sources claim that Tatiana has been coming under heavy administrative and possibly even criminal prosecution pressure after a recent fire incident at the Wildberries sorting hub in Saint Petersburg, which was rushed into operation with the necessary regulatory approvals.

Reportedly, to deal with the matter at the highest level she could have turned to Kerimov, a Kremlin insider, and Russ Group, in exchange for a share in Wildberries.

bne IntelliNews speculated in a recent opinion piece, the deal could also be part of a move by Russian President Vladimir Putin to increase the Kremlin’s influence over Wildberries, Russia’s answer to Amazon, as part of a broader move to enhance the Kremlin’s control over Russia’s answer to Facebook (VK) and Google (Yandex).