English Kommersant - The court upheld the lawsuit of Deripaska against Navalny for protection of business reputation

The Arbitration Court of Moscow has satisfied the lawsuit of businessman Oleg Deripaska for the protection of business reputation against the imprisoned oppositionist Alexei Navalny. The defendant will have to remove the information from the video released in 2019 within a day after the decision enters into force, as well as publish a refutation within a month. Oleg Deripaska filed a lawsuit for the protection of business reputation in February 2020, demanding to refute and remove the information voiced by Alexei Navalny in the program "Navalny Live" on his YouTube channel. Mr. Navalny claimed that Mr. Deripaska's business in Russia was growing by obtaining large loans from state banks on non-market terms and refinancing them. He linked the suit to political pressure and the anniversary of the release of his investigation into former Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, "He's Not Your Dimon. Initially, the plaintiff requested that a rebuttal be posted on Navalny's website, where the video appeared, but the court was reminded that this resource was blocked. Then the businessman's representatives suggested that this text be published in any business newspaper, choosing Kommersant as the final choice. "I suggested to the court any edition, but since your newspaper is a leading business newspaper and you were just in the room, I thought it would be funny," Mr. Deripaska's lawyer explained to Kommersant. He later went on to explain the choice of the newspaper to publish the rebuttal: "The choice of Kommersant as the place to publish Navalny's denial of inaccurate information was due to its wide readership, including the business audience, which is an important condition for Oleg Deripaska's rights. V. Deripaska's right to his good name and business reputation". Also, the court ordered Mr. Navalny to pay moral compensation to the businessman in the amount of 1 rub. and 50 thousand rubles as a penalty for every day of non-execution of the court decision. "The decision can be appealed in the Ninth Arbitration Court of Appeal," the court concluded. The businessman's representative told the court that the fact that Alexei Navalny had posted defamatory information about Oleg Deripaska was confirmed by two linguistic expert appraisals ordered by the plaintiff. The politician's defence insisted that his judgments were value judgments and were not facts and therefore could not be refuted, and also referred to the conclusions of its own expert appraisal submitted to the court. In response to questions from the defendant's lawyer, a representative of the businessman confirmed that Mr Deripaska had taken loans from state banks and refinanced them, but stressed that loans were also taken out by foreign banks at high interest rates.