Moscow's Tagansky District Court partially upheld businessman Oleg Deripaska's defamation and reputation-protection lawsuit, ordering four defendants to pay a combined 40 million rubles under joint and several liability. The plaintiff's lawyer, Alexei Melnikov, announced the ruling on October 23, according to Interfax.
The defendants are Maria Pevchikh, Irina Aleman, Sergei Yezhov and Olga Romanova. Deripaska originally sought 1 billion rubles from them jointly. According to his representative, the court ruled that the disputed statements harmed the businessman's reputation and were untrue.
One basis for the lawsuit was a YouTube video titled “Organized Crime, Officials, Girls: The Criminal Biography of Oleg Deripaska.” The businessman's lawyer said the court also ordered the defendants to delete the video and publish a retraction.
Joint and several liability means that 40 million rubles is the total amount of the obligation, not a separate penalty of that size for each defendant. The plaintiff's lawyer's account is no substitute for the full court ruling, so the court's precise reasoning and any procedural details should be assessed after the decision is published.
All four defendants are listed by Russian authorities as “foreign agents.” The litigation concerns public criticism of a powerful Russian businessman. Reporting the court's position does not mean the newsroom independently verified every disputed assertion in the video.