War is waging against HarperCollins, and author Catherine Belton over 'Putin's People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West'. This book predominantly focuses on the emergence of Putin's regime and the resistance of the KGB. Last year, this book was released and had been in battles within the High Court due to it including 'defamatory' language.
On the 28th of July, author Catherine Belton and publisher HarperCollins went to fight their case against Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft and three Russian billionaires. Unfortunately, one of the three billionaires fighting their side is the owner of Chelsea FC, Roman Abramovic. This football club owner was brought under attack in the book as Catherine claimed that Abramovic only
purchased Chelsea FC under the orders of Putin, something the owner intensely denies.
Since then, Abramovic's lawyer Harbottle & Lewis stated that the book "falsely alleges that our client has acted corruptly and made false claims about our client's purchase, and the activities, of Chelsea Football Club". Abramovic's lawyers have also declared that this book is an "attack on free speech and public interest journalism".
In addition, Rosneft has also served a libel claim against Catherine and HarperCollins and the other two billionaires, Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven. It has been reported that Fridman is suing for defamation and on data protection grounds. Furthermore, Aven is only suing on data protection grounds. However, specific details have not been released yet.
So far, upon recent hearings in the High Court regarding this case, Hugh Tomlinson QC, for Abramovic, rejected the characterisation of the claim as an attack on free speech due to the books 'lazy inaccuracies.
However, since this issue was dealt with, other matters relating to the wording of the disputed passages and whether they are defamatory. Tomlinson has argued that the judge, Mrs Justice Tipples, should address the words complained of from the perspective of an ordinary reader, who has no precise knowledge on the situation outlined and that the entire book should not be focused upon, only the disputed passages.
HarperCollins, the publisher of this book, stated that they would "robustly defend" this book and the "right to report on matters of considerable public interest."
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