Russian businessman loses London lawsuit against sanctioned oligarch Andrey Guryev

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A Russian businessman who claimed he was entitled to a stake worth hundreds of millions of dollars in one of the world’s largest producers of fertiliser has lost a courtroom battle against its billionaire former boss who is under sanctions.

Alexander Gorbachev brought a lawsuit against Andrey Guryev at the High Court in London, arguing that his former friend reneged on a verbal promise he had made — partly in a sauna and on the street outside a pub in Mayfair — over a substantial interest in Moscow-listed PhosAgro.

Guryev — who bought Witanhurst in Highgate, among London’s largest homes — described the legal proceedings as a “shakedown”. A judgment on Thursday dismissed Gorbachev’s claim, after a six-week trial earlier this year, which required Judge Mark Pelling KC to travel to Dubai to hear Guryev’s testimony on account of the sanctions imposed on the defendant.

“There are simply too many unexplained and unexplainable inconsistencies and inherent implausibilities about what the claimant has alleged over time,” the judge concluded.

The dispute is one of several between Russian businessmen who have previously brought litigation in London over whether one promised the other shares in a business created in buccaneering post-Soviet Russia.

Paul Stanley KC, for Gorbachev, told the court that what occurred was “a million miles from the sort of organised business planning that is discussed in MBA seminars. It is one of improvisation in the face of chaos, of political and personal danger, and massive legal risk.”

Gorbachev, who was a longtime senior manager at PhosAgro but fled Russia for the UK in 2004, claimed he was entitled to 25 per cent of Guryev’s shares in the fertiliser business, estimated to be worth several hundred million dollars. The court heard that the company, which Guryev once headed, had a market capitalisation of about £3.7bn in 2020. It is also listed in London but its shares were suspended in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In support of his claim, Gorbachev — who is no relation to the former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev — cited conversations he and Guryev purportedly had at various locations around London in 2005 and subsequently also in 2008, including in a sauna, outside a pub and in leading hotels and restaurants including the Ritz and the Wolseley.

Guryev said Gorbachev’s assertions had “no factual basis”. In a statement following the verdict, he said Gorbachev had “provided no documentary evidence to support his claims and none of Gorbachev’s witnesses were able to corroborate his grossly exaggerated claims”. His lawyers said the case “should never have reached trial”.

Gorbachev said in a statement: “This is an extremely disappointing decision. Clearly, I will review it and consider my options.”