Libel win for Abramovich over book’s Putin claims
BILLIONAIRE Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich has won the first round of a libel claim over allegations that he bought the club on Vladimir Putin’s orders in a plot to gain influence in the West.
The 55-year-old businessman is suing journalist Catherine Belton over her bestselling book Putin’s People, which was published by HarperCollins last April.
A High Court judge yesterday found nine of the allegations were defamatory against Mr Abramovich. Mrs Justice Tipples also ruled that the book presents the allegations as statements of fact, rather than expressions of opinion as the publisher and author argued.
Ms Belton, the former Moscow correspondent for the Financial Times, said Mr Abramovich ‘was acting under Kremlin direction’ when he bought the Premier League club for £150million in 2003.
His barrister Hugh Tomlinson QC told the High Court in July that readers would conclude Mr Abramovich ‘had been used as the acceptable face of a corrupt and dangerous regime’.
But Andrew Caldecott QC, representing Ms Belton and HarperCollins, said the book includes a firm denial from ‘a person close to Abramovich’ that he bought Chelsea on the orders of the Russian president.
In her ruling, Mrs Justice Tipples found that readers of the book would understand Mr Abramovich to be ‘under the control’ of Kremlin and think he ‘has had to make the fortune from his business empire available for the use of President Putin and his regime’. She also said an ordinary reader would understand the book to allege the claimant purchased Chelsea at the direction of Putin ‘ so that Russia could gain acceptance and influence in the UK’. Separately, she struck out three of four libel allegations by Russian oil giant Rosneft over the book. Mr Abramovich’s spokesperson said: ‘ We welcome today’s judgment which rules that the book indeed makes several defamatory allegations.’ HarperCollins said it is ‘carefully considering the judgment’, adding that ‘several serious meanings in Mr Abramovich’s claim have also been rejected’.