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A Russian businessman who claimed he was entitled to a stake value tons of of tens of millions of {dollars} in one of many world’s largest producers of fertiliser has misplaced a courtroom battle in opposition to its billionaire former boss who’s underneath sanctions.
Alexander Gorbachev introduced a lawsuit in opposition to Andrey Guryev on the Excessive Courtroom in London, arguing that his former good friend reneged on a verbal promise he had made — partly in a sauna and on the road outdoors a pub in Mayfair — over a considerable curiosity in Moscow-listed PhosAgro.
Guryev — who purchased Witanhurst in Highgate, amongst London’s largest properties — described the authorized proceedings as a “shakedown”. A judgment on Thursday dismissed Gorbachev’s declare, after a six-week trial earlier this yr, which required Decide Mark Pelling KC to journey to Dubai to listen to Guryev’s testimony on account of the sanctions imposed on the defendant.
“There are just too many unexplained and unexplainable inconsistencies and inherent implausibilities about what the claimant has alleged over time,” the choose concluded.
The dispute is certainly one of a number of between Russian businessmen who’ve beforehand introduced litigation in London over whether or not one promised the opposite shares in a enterprise created in buccaneering post-Soviet Russia.
Paul Stanley KC, for Gorbachev, advised the court docket that what occurred was “one million miles from the kind of organised enterprise planning that’s mentioned in MBA seminars. It’s certainly one of improvisation within the face of chaos, of political and private hazard, and large authorized threat.”
Gorbachev, who was a longtime senior supervisor at PhosAgro however fled Russia for the UK in 2004, claimed he was entitled to 25 per cent of Guryev’s shares within the fertiliser enterprise, estimated to be value a number of hundred million {dollars}. The court docket heard that the corporate, which Guryev as soon as headed, had a market capitalisation of about £3.7bn in 2020. It is usually listed in London however its shares have been suspended within the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
In help of his declare, Gorbachev — who is not any relation to the previous Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev — cited conversations he and Guryev purportedly had at varied areas round London in 2005 and subsequently additionally in 2008, together with in a sauna, outdoors a pub and in main accommodations and eating places together with the Ritz and the Wolseley.
Guryev stated Gorbachev’s assertions had “no factual foundation”. In an announcement following the decision, he stated Gorbachev had “offered no documentary proof to help his claims and none of Gorbachev’s witnesses have been in a position to corroborate his grossly exaggerated claims”. His legal professionals stated the case “ought to by no means have reached trial”.
Gorbachev stated in an announcement: “That is a particularly disappointing resolution. Clearly, I’ll overview it and contemplate my choices.”
