Russia’s only female billionaire has won a defamation suit against the editor of Forbes Russia which had published a cover story on how she had acquired her fortune.
In a legal interpretation that is likely to further chill journalism in Russia, a city court in Moscow on Wednesday ruled against editor Maksim Kashulinsky, not for the contents of the article but for commenting publicly on the controversy surrounding its publication.
Kashulinsky said in a radio interview before the article was published that Inteko — a company controlled by Yelena Baturina, the wife of the Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov — had tried to block publication of the article, the New York Times reported. In doing so, the company had violated Russian law, he said.
Inteko, which deals primarily in real estate and construction, sued for a symbolic 106,500 rubles, or $4,090, equivalent to 1 ruble for each copy of the December print run of Forbes magazine that had the 43-year-old Baturina on the cover. Forbes estimates that Baturina is worth $3.1 billion.
"Papers win or lose lawsuits on a regular basis almost every month," Kashulinsky told RIA Novosti agency, adding that he intended to appeal the decision in the Moscow City Court. "We want the [higher] court to hear our position at least, because during today's session we were not even allowed to bring our witnesses," he said.
Inteko issued a statement saying the judge's ruling had proved that the company's efforts to defend its business reputation were legal.
The seven-page article on Baturina discussed plans to prepare her business for her husband's eventual departure from the mayor's office and stirred up accusations that Baturina owed her success to her husband's public position.
The cover of the magazine originally carried Baturina's picture and quoted her as saying: "I have guaranteed protection."
Before the magazine went to press, Kashulinsky said, lawyers for Inteko threatened a lawsuit against Axel Springer, the German publisher of Forbes Russia. Axel Springer briefly delayed the release of the issue, putting it on sale only after Kashulinsky had threatened to resign to protest the delay.
Amid the dispute, Kashulinsky gave an interview on Ekho Moskvy (Echo Moscow) radio in which he said Inteko's threat of a lawsuit had violated Russia's media laws and amounted to censorship. After the issue hit the newsstands — a day late — Inteko sued both Springer and Kashulinsky personally, saying his radio comments amounted to defamation.
Inteko is also seeking a symbolic 106,500 rubles from Alex Springer for the article, which it called libelous. The Springer case will be heard in April.
Baturina's fortune almost tripled to $3.1 billion last year from $1.1 billion a year earlier, according to the US edition of Forbes' annual world wealth survey published this month. That ranked Baturina No 30 on the list of 52 Russian billionaires. Luzhkov, who has run the capital for 15 years, has presided over a building boom that has transformed Moscow and drawn criticism from preservation groups, the Moscow Times said.
A leading Russian business daily, Kommersant, said at the time that the article highlighted how Baturina had reshaped her real estate business following her husband's departure from office in December 2007 so that Inteko could continue to profit from leasing land and real estate. The report cited figures in the confirmation.
Baturina, the Guardian said, is well known for her fondness for litigation, and is notoriously sensitive to long-standing allegations — often aired at Moscow dinner parties —that she owes her multi-billion pound property empire to her husband's influence over construction contracts. Luzhkov, once considered a contender for Russia's presidency, is due to stand down after 14 years as Moscow's mayor. During this time his wife's company has developed some of the Russian's capital best real-estate sites. In recent years Moscow property prices have boomed, and shopping centres and skyscrapers have mushroomed across the city, it said.
But reporting aggressively on big business in Russia, the New York Times comented, can be perilous. Kashulinsky's predecessor, Paul Klebnikov, was shot and killed on a Moscow street in 2004. Authorities have linked the slaying to his investigative work, but the case is still working its way through the Russian courts.
