CL-2022-000456 - [2025] EWHC 1938 (Comm)

Mr Marc Hechler is CEO of EuroChem AG and a board member. Before that he held various senior positions within EuroChem AG, notably as Head of Europe from May 2022 to June 2024. Once again, it was apparent, and he confirmed orally, that “Europe” meant Switzerland and the EU, but did not include Russia.

Mr Hechler was a careful witness. He sometimes was reluctant to accept the obvious, but I attribute this more to nervousness and natural caution than anything more sinister. He too gave evidence about the checks EuroChem AG has in place, and confirmed how seriously he and EuroChem AG’s managers as a whole take their personal commitments not to allow Mr or Mrs Melnichenko to assert any influence over the conduct of EuroChem AG.

However, his knowledge was confined to EuroChem AG’s European affairs. He said that he could not speak to matters outside Europe. Indeed, his evidence was that EuroChem AG has no real involvement in the management of MCC EuroChem or EuroChem NW2 or any of EuroChem AG’s subsidiaries outside the EU, especially not those in Russia. He did not know who the directors of MCC EuroChem are. Nor could he speak to what happened higher up the structure, at the level of the trusts.