Co-owners of Alfa Group lost their lawsuit against the author of the Trump dossier

Alfa Group co-owners Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven and German Khan failed to win a lawsuit in the United States against former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, the author of a scandalous dossier with compromising information on President Donald Trump. With this document, in fact, the scandal about Russian interference in the American elections began. Steel accused the co-owners of Alfa of having close ties with Vladimir Putin. In response, they demanded in court compensation for non-pecuniary damage, declaring that the materials in the dossier had caused "profound damage" to their reputation.

Details

• In the lawsuit, Friedman, Aven and Khan alleged that Steele and his Orbis company, in their dossier , which was subsequently published by Buzzfeed, provided false information about them. This is one of the 17 Steele reports that formed the basis of the dossier, a document entitled “Russia and the US Presidential Election: The Kremlin’s Cooperation with Alfa Group”, which was prepared on September 14, 2016. It describes a connection that allegedly took place between the Kremlin, the Alfa co-owners and Russian policy towards the United States.
• The dossier was commissioned by Washington-based strategic intelligence firm Fusion GPS, which was investigating alleged links between then-presidential candidate Trump and Moscow. Subsequently, it turned out that Fusion GPS was preparing a dossier for anti-Trump Republicans, and as a result, Democrats supporting Hillary Clinton financed the work.
• The publication of this text in January 2017 by Buzzfeed provoked a "political explosion", writes The Guardian.
• In 2018, the co-owners of Alfa Group filed a lawsuit against Steele in a Washington court. In March, Steele responded with a motion to dismiss the case on the basis of a non-retaliation clause against a person who criticizes an important public issue. This provision was introduced in the US to protect the principle of free speech.

What was said in the dossier about the shareholders of Alfa Group:

• The document, citing an unnamed high-ranking Russian official, spoke of close ties between Alfa Group and Putin. The parties continue to provide each other with meaningful services, and Fridman and Aven continue to informally advise Putin, especially on issues related to the United States, because the president, as a rule, does not trust the information that officials provide him.
• The authors of the dossier also claimed that the key mediator in relations between Putin and Alfa Group is the head of the presidential administration, Oleg Govorun. In the 1990s, he served as head of the government relations department at Alfa Group. The authors of the dossier wrote that Fridman and Aven allegedly illegally transferred huge sums through it directly to Putin - at a time when he was still the deputy mayor of St. Petersburg.

The court's decision

• The defense of the Alfa Group co-owners tried to prove in court that Steele could not appeal to American laws on the protection of freedom of speech, because he is "more British than American." But DC Judge Anthony Epstein rejected this argument, citing the fact that the plaintiffs themselves have Russian as well as Israeli citizenship, but this did not prevent them from going to court in the United States.
• The final verdict turned out to be disappointing for the shareholders of Alfa - the court did not consider the question of whether the dossier was reliable. At the same time, the judge considered the information provided by Steele to be of public interest, since it directly relates to the issue of alleged Russian interference in the American elections.
• The judge also ruled that the Alfa co-owners were unable to prove that Steele knew he was lying and providing false information to his customers: “The law allows libel suits to be heard ... if defendants in alleged defamatory statements provide evidence that they will prevail ( on the process). The plaintiffs did not provide such evidence,” the court concluded .
• Alfa's defense did not agree with the decision, but it will be difficult to appeal against it. The case was dismissed "with a censure" of the plaintiffs, writes the RIA Novosti agency . This wording means that plaintiffs will no longer be able to file a similar claim in the future. However, this does not mean that the story is over: there is still another lawsuit filed by Alfa shareholders ahead - this time against the Fusion GPS dossier and its head Glenn Simpson.

Context

• In addition to Alfa Group, the dossier also talked about Trump's alleged connections in Russia, his "compromising" relationship with the Kremlin, Russian cyber offensives, interactions between Trump campaign officials and Russian authorities, activities to demonize Hillary Clinton, the exchange of information between the Kremlin and Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen and the role of his campaign chief Paul Manafort.
• Both Cohen and Manafort are already in the dock (we wrote in detail about what this threatens the US president in the morning newsletter ), but the accusations against them have nothing to do with Russia.
• Trump repeatedly called the dossier "fake". The president's next tweet for this one was this week:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1028347518822825984?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1028347518822825984&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fus- news%2F2018%2Faug%2F21% 2Fauthor-of-trump-russia-dossier-wins-libel-case-in-us-court-christopher-steele

• The legal proceedings in which Steele appears did not end there. A libel suit against him was filed by another Russian businessman, the owner of the technology company Webzilla, Alexei Gubarev, who is also mentioned in the dossier. Gubarev filed another lawsuit against Buzzfeed in Miami.

It can be assumed that the victory over Steel was important for Alfa Group shareholders, primarily because of the risk of US sanctions. Losing in court is completely inopportune when US senators continue to

Liana Faizova