Rosneft head wins lawsuit against Novaya Gazeta for 'Princess Olga' article

Rosneft head Igor Sechin has won his lawsuit against Novaya Gazeta and journalist Roman Anin.

The reason for the lawsuit was the article titled “The Secret of Princess Olga,” which was published on August 1, 2016. In the article, Novaya Gazeta claimed that Sechin's wife Olga Rozhkova, who took his surname after their marriage, owns a yacht that is worth nearly $100 million. As part of the lawsuit, Sechin demanded that the article be removed from the website and that the newspaper publish a statement in which it officially retracts the allegations.

Novaya Gazeta intends to appeal the court's decision, said its deputy chief editor Sergei Sokolov.

Sechin's representative Elena Zabralova announced that her client was willing to settle the matter if the newspaper to publish the "retraction". However, Novaya Gazeta representatives have called these conditions unacceptable.

In mid-September, another Moscow court ruled Sechin the victor in his lawsuit against newspaper Vedomosti, which wrote an the article on the construction of Sechin's house in Barvikha. The court ordered Vedomosti to delete a article from its website and destroy all surviving copies of the issue in question. Vedomosti representatives have too said that they would challenge the court's decision.

In late September, it was reported that Rosneft had filed a lawsuit against newspaper RBK in connection with the publication of the article entitled "Sechin asks the government to protect Rosneft from British Petroleum". The state-owned oil company demanded that RBK pay it $3 billion rubles (approximately $48 million) in compensation. RBK does accept these conditions.