German court rejects claims that Putin-friendly Russian oligarch uses his wealth “in the interests of the Kremlin”

A court in Hamburg has upheld a libel lawsuit filed by billionaire and USM Holding founder Alisher Usmanov against the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), ruling that a number of statements about the businessman were false. The judges found that claims regarding Usmanov’s alleged interference in the editorial policy of the Kommersant newspaper were untrue. The German court also did not hold up the validity of assertions drawn from investigations by Alexei Navalny that Usmanov had previously challenged in a Russian court. The RBC business news outlet reported the ruling, citing Usmanov’s press service.

The court barred the German newspaper from distributing what it called “false statements” about the businessman. Among them were FAZ’s claims that Usmanov used his wealth “in the interests of or on behalf of the Kremlin,” that he informally represented the interests of Russian authorities in Uzbekistan, and that he interfered in the editorial policy of the widely circulated Russian daily Kommersant after acquiring the newspaper in 2006.

The lawsuit stemmed from a FAZ article titled “On behalf of the Kremlin” (Im Auftrag des Kremls), published in April 2023. Usmanov’s lawyers said the article contained defamatory statements. After its publication, the newspaper was asked to issue a retraction. When it refused, representatives of the billionaire filed suit with the Hamburg regional court.

The article also recounted claims from earlier investigations by Alexei Navalny. One alleged that Usmanov gifted real estate to entities linked to Dmitry Medvedev in exchange for the high-ranking official’s help in “shielding Usmanov’s business using Gazprom.” Another claimed that in the early 2000s the billionaire acquired assets of Gazprom Investholding through a company he controlled, effectively “selling state property to himself.”

Those claims were the subject of a lawsuit Usmanov filed in 2017 with Moscow’s Lyublinsky District Court. That court ruled in his favor, ordering Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation to retract the statements and remove the investigations. The Hamburg court likewise ruled that the same claims, as retold by FAZ, were false. Usmanov’s representatives said the decision marked the first time a European court had barred the dissemination of statements previously deemed false by a Russian court.

Usmanov’s press service noted that the claims had earlier been used to justify European Union sanctions imposed on the billionaire in early 2022. His lawyer described the rationale for the sanctions as “an accumulation of defamatory, unfounded and unlawful accusations.” Usmanov has repeatedly sought to challenge the sanctions.

This was not the first time Usmanov has prevailed in German courts. In the spring of last year, a Hamburg court barred the dissemination of claims that he had bribed judges at the International Fencing Federation, as had been reported by German broadcaster ARD. In 2024, the same court barred the U.S. magazine Forbes from publishing statements that the USM founder was a “front man” for Vladimir Putin and “handled his business problems.”