Lawyers for Roman Abramovich stated that the businessman described the businessman as having a “corrupt relationship” with Russian President Vladimir Putin and was in key business transactions such as the acquisition of Chelsea Football Club. It is defamatory that he acted “secretly in accordance with his instructions”.
On the first morning of the preliminary hearing on the High Court defamation accusation about a modern Kremlin bestseller, Hugh Tomlinson QC said that the 54-year-old billionaire did not “take it lightly” and understood it. It can be described as “an attack on public interest news.”
The lawyer also accused the author Catherine Belton in her book “Putin’s People” for repeating “lazy mistakes” about his position in Russian politics and society.
The barrister said that at the beginning of the two-day hearing in the High Court, Abramovich complained about the 26 excerpts from the book. The purpose was to determine the meaning of the key paragraphs before the full trial. The case was deemed to be against the United Kingdom. Defamation laws and their impact on investigative journalism.
Reuters special correspondent Belton was also sued by Russian state-owned energy giant Rosneft for defamation.
The core of Abramovich’s complaint is that the billionaire bought it for 150 million pounds. Chelsea The 2003 FC was “directed” by the President of Russia. Tomlinson said that the words in Belton’s book meant that Putin ordered Abramovich to buy the club as “part of a plan to corrupt the West by corrupting local elites” and “a partition of Russian influence.”
Tomlinson said: “Ordinary and rational readers will inevitably think that Roman Abramovich was instructed to buy Chelsea…so he was used as an acceptable face for a corrupt and dangerous regime.”
He added: “At any stage, readers will not be told that Abramovich is actually a person who is alienated from Putin and has not participated in the various corruption schemes described,” Tomlinson said. “Instead, he was described as a bribe.”
Andrew Caldercott QC, representing Belton and HarperCollins, thinks Belton’s argument about buying Chelsea Football Club is more subtle. The book quoted three sources saying that Abramovich bought the club under the guidance of Putin, former presidential inner circle member Sergei Pugchaev, and two others.
But he added that Belton himself did not draw a clear conclusion. “Now this is a case where we say that the author’s position is clear and open,” Caldecott said, indicating that Belton wrote “But whatever the truth of the matter, Abramovich chose Chelsea as a symbol of the influx of Russian funds into the UK. .”
Caldecott said Belton also denied this claim-in the article from a friend of Abramovich-to make it clear that this position is controversial. But Tomlinson thinks the wording is rough, which is “naked denial.”
In the afternoon, the court also learned that two other related cases had been settled: one involved Russian businessman Mikhail Fridman (Mikhail Fridman), 57 years old, who filed a similar defamation lawsuit against HarperCollins, and the other involved The publisher’s data protection lawsuit against HarperCollins. Petr Aven, 66 years old, is the head of Alpha Bank, a Russian bank.
Tomlinson told the court that the publisher “agreeed to delete” the controversial material and agreed to apologize.
HarperCollins’ attorneys stated that the publisher’s changes to resolve Fridman and Aven’s claims were minimal, including three paragraphs. HarperCollins added that it has “revised some of the statements” and regrets that it did not submit the dispute to the two people prior to publication.
Earlier, Tomlinson, who represented Abramovich and Friedman and Ivan, said that there was “no relationship” between these claims. He told Judge Tipples that he was instructed to act on behalf of the three “coincidentally and completely independently” and that “there was no coordination of any kind between these claimants.”
A week before the hearing, anti-corruption activist Bill Browder stated that the case “may become the largest legal action I have ever seen and may prevent future reporters from reporting on Putin’s wealth”.
The hearing is expected to continue to review Rosneft’s claims on Thursday. It is expected that a judgment related to the hearing will be made within a few weeks, and a full trial of the defamation case will not be possible until 2022.
