Russian potash investor wins case over missing shares

MOSCOW Dec 28 (Reuters) - Billionaire investor Anatoly Lomakin was awarded 1.7 billion roubles ($54 million) by a Russian court after shares in potash miner Silvinit disappeared from his account, the miner's successor company Uralkali said on Wednesday.

Lomakin, formerly one of Silvinit's core shareholders, filed the claim in January after actions by an unknown party caused 61,980 shares to be written off from his account.

The investor filed the claim against Silvinit and share registration company CJSC Computershare Registrar and the court -- in the city of Perm in the Urals -- will now decide how to split the payment of the damages between those two.

A spokeswoman for Uralkali said she expects the court to provide this information in January.

"Uralkali will consider further actions after receiving the complete text of the decision made by the Perm Territory Arbitration Court," the company said in a statement.

Uralkali and Silvinit merged earlier this year to create the world's second-largest potash miner by capacity after Canada's Potash Corp. ($1 = 31.4620 Russian roubles) (Reporting by Alfred Kueppers; Editing by David Holmes)