The largest Russia-dedicated fund, Prosperity Capital Management (PCM), and minority shareholder in the Russian automotive group GAZ, has accused owner Oleg Deripaska of funnelling RUB11.5bn ($199mn) out of the company, RBC reported on September 27.

PCM has a 6.86% share in GAZ and claims that the carmaker, which hasn't paid dividends since 2008, provided loans to companies affiliated with the main shareholder that are actually a scam to drain cash out of the company.

GAZ has dismissed the accusations as "far-fetched".

PCM it a proactive investor and has taken oligarchs to court on many occasions in the past. “We used to lose most of these cases,” PCM founder Mattias Westman said at a Moscow Exchange event in New York last year. “Now we win most of them.”

This is not the first time minority shareholders of Deripaska's companies have been upset. Recently, the Association of Professional Investors informed the London Stock Exchange about irregularities related to mandatory buyback of shares from minority shareholders by one of the companies of the power group En+.

In 2013, Prosperity Capital filed a lawsuit for RUB650mn against GAZ' board member, but the court threw out the lawsuit.

In 2016, GAZ reported an IFRS net profit of RUB1.1bn against a net loss of RUB1.9bn a year before. The group hasn't paid dividends on its regular shares since 2008.

Created on the basis of the former Soviet automotive giant of the same name, GAZ includes several automotive plants that make trucks, cars, buses and LCVs, including Nizhni Novgorod, Saransk, Pavlovo, Kurgan and Golitsyno.

In 2017, Russia's automotive market has been recovering after a three-year slump.