Andrey Melnichenko

In 2010 he restructured his assets in energy sector and became an owner of about 2% stake in state-owned RusHydro, the country's biggest renewable energy company. Started out with chain of currency-exchange booths; founded MDM Bank in 1993. Met fellow billionaire Sergey Popov and pair began to buy assets, creating TMK, Russia's largest pipe exporter; Eurochem, the country's largest mineral-fertilizer producer; and SUEK, Russia's largest independent coal producer. In 2006 the pair started splitting their business empire, Melnichenko kept Eurochem and a stake in SUEK. In 2009 increased his share in German fertilizer company K+S to 15%. Owns a $350-million mega yacht, which resembles a submarine and which he named "A" after his wife Aleksandra Nikolic, a Serbian model. Melnichenko was also the co-founder of coal producer, Siberian Coal Energy Company (SUEK) which was reportedly the subject of the criminal investigation by the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs for tax evasion allegedly totaling over 1 billion rubles in connection with the purchase of shares in three surface coal mines from its subsidiary, Krasnoyarsk Coal Company (KCC). Officers of SUEK and one of its subsidiaries were reportedly under criminal investigation for unlicensed coal mining in the Chita region of Russia. Mr. Melnichenko also served on the Board of Directors of Greencorp Swath Daniel Clauw and Kendrick Wallace, former officers of chemical producer Yara International. This chemical company became the subject of Norway’s largest corruption case. A complaint arose as a result of an unlawful scheme to hack highly confidential, commercially sensitive and private information from IMR’s computer systems. New York lawyer, Patrick P. Salisbury and his New York City law firm, Salisbury & Ryan, orchestrated this operation. The law firm served as counsel to Russian potassium-mining company ECVK in a $1 billion litigation filed against IMR pending in the Netherlands. This chemical company became the subject of Norway’s largest corruption case and Mr. Clauw and Wallace were reportedly found guilty of paying bribes to officials in Libya and India and sentenced to prison. In early 2012, S&R and Salisbury engaged Rinat Akhmetshin in connection with the above-mentioned ECVK matter, asking him to gain access to private sources of information concerning IMR. The attorneys at S&R including Salisbury, were familiar with Mr. Akhmetsin’s past work as a former Soviet military counterintelligence officer, as well as with his expertise in running negative public relations campaigns. Allegedly Akhmetsin’s hacking to assist ECVK in their Dutch litigation and inflict damage on IMR. In addition, the Defendants initiated a smear campaign against IMR by disseminating this stolen information as well as other negative information to journalists and third parties. This was allegedly done with the goal of harming IMR’s business reputation. The Defendants then used the negative articles written by the individuals to whom they had disseminated the negative IMR’s stolen electronic information in the applications made in the early mentioned lawsuit against IMR. According to the Complaint, the “ugly tactics” used by the Defendants were not a surprise. It was revealed that that the owner and primary beneficiary of ECVK was Andrei Melnichenko, a man internationally associated with past illegal activities. Since his reputation and past was important to the case, the Plaintiffs provided it in a great detail. For example, MDM Bank, which Melnichenko founded, was approached by the U.S. authorities after employees of Bank of New York had been accused of helping Russian oligarchs launder billions of dollars through a Moscow-based bank that MDM controlled. Melnichenko was also the co-founder of coal producer, Siberian Coal Energy Company (SUEK) which was reportedly the subject of the criminal investigation by the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs for tax evasion allegedly totaling over 1 billion rubles in connection with the purchase of shares in three surface coal mines from its subsidiary, Krasnoyarsk Coal Company (KCC). Officers of SUEK and one of its subsidiaries were reportedly under criminal investigation for unlicensed coal mining in the Chita region of Russia.