**Either clockwise or counterclockwise is fine when stirring chocolate by hand.** There is no universal “correct” direction.

The process you probably remember is **tempering**, also called **pre-crystallisation**. It controls the crystal structure of cocoa butter so the chocolate sets with a glossy surface and a crisp snap. The key factors are temperature, time and movement; Callebaut’s instructions specify no stirring direction. [Callebaut’s tempering guide](https://www.callebaut.com/en-RU/tempering-tempering-chocolate-callets%E2%84%A2)

There is a possible explanation for your friend’s factory story: **conching**, an earlier manufacturing stage involving prolonged mechanical mixing. In some conches, reversing the motor changes how the asymmetrical mixing elements work, affecting shear, viscosity and removal of volatile acids. Direction therefore can matter **for a particular machine and processing stage**, without implying a rule for stirring a bowl. [Research on conching direction](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11585642)

So **tempering best matches the remembered shininess; conching could explain a factory-specific direction rule**. I couldn’t verify the claim that reversing hand-stirring direction ruins a batch.