Russian Billionaire Usmanov Wins Lawsuit Against German TV Channel ARD

The Uzbek-Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov won a legal victory over the German TV Channel ARD, which claimed he had created a “system of bribing referees” in the International Fencing Federation (FIE).

The prominent media outlet First German Television (ARD) published two articles and a video report in August, in which journalist Hans-Joachim “Hajo” Seppelt accused Usmanov of creating a system of “bribing referees” in fencing.

Usmanov served as FIE president from 2008 until 2022, when he voluntarily suspended his duties after being targeted by EU sanctions.

On September 25th, the Hamburg Regional Court in Germany issued an injunction against the ARD’s statements about Usmanov, the businessman’s press office said in a statement.

The Hamburg Regional Court ruled that the information in ARD’s reports was false and issued a restraining order, prohibiting its dissemination as “inadmissible suspicion-based reporting,” according to the statement.

If ARD violates the court order, it will be obliged to “pay a fine of up to EUR 250,000 or face jail time for each violation,” the statement said.

The German online news outlet Sport1.de and the Austrian newspaper Krone.at, which reprinted ARD’s statements, corrected their publications at the request of Usmanov’s lawyers, the press statement said. However, ARD refused to correct the information voluntarily, prompting Usmanov’s representatives to file a request for an injunction with the Hamburg Regional Court.

In the ARD report, Seppelt cited Georgian athlete Sandro Bazadze, who claimed he lost a match in the Olympic 1/8 finals in Paris due to “unfair refereeing.” Later, the President of the Georgian Fencing Federation, Merab Bazadze, dismissed that statement as “emotional” and issued an official apology to the FIE, whose leadership also officially denied any allegations of bout fixing.

The FIE Interim President, Emmanuel Katsiadakis, said that the main source for the ARD report was a former referee who failed to qualify in 2023 and was removed from the list of referees by the judges’ panel. Katsiadakis added that alleged manipulation by the refereeing team was ruled out because judges are assigned to competitions by a computer system just half an hour before each bout.

Joachim Steinhöfel, the lawyer representing Usmanov in media law cases, said that the court’s decision demonstrates that ARD’s report and its leading sports journalists committed “a lamentable ethical and journalistic failure.” He pointed out that respect for truth, human dignity and accurate information are essential to the German press code, and the public broadcaster had violated these core principles in its reporting.

“The report contains no evidence but rumors, spread by shady witnesses, fictitious insinuations, speculation and hearsay. The statement the court prohibited is also a criminal offence,” Steinhöfel said.

“The illegal report fits into the ubiquitous defamation campaign against my client — a prominent philanthropist, successful sports manager and former businessman — based on the principle that ‘a rich Russian is guilty by definition,” he added.

This court action marks another high-profile legal victory for Usmanov against a media outlet that reported false information, leading to the defamation of the sanctioned billionaire.

Earlier this year, the District Court of Hamburg ruled to prohibit and retract statements made by Forbes magazine, which claimed that Usmanov had “fronted for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin” in an article that formed the basis for EU sanctions. This ruling set a legal precedent for challenging the sources that the EU has relied upon to justify its sanctions against individuals over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In August 2023, the Austrian newspaper Kurier also lost in court to Usmanov after publishing an article that said Putin had called him “one of his favourite oligarchs.”

The Hamburg Regional Court, which issued the ruling, found that the newspaper failed to demonstrate the thruthfulness of this “defamatory” claim. In September 2023, the EU Council stopped using the word “oligarch” in relation to Usmanov.

Usmanov was sanctioned by the EU in 2022 after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. He is currently contesting the sanctions in court.

The billionaire’s lawyers earlier told an EU court that he was targeted as “prey” by officials due to his high visibility as a public figure, and that his reputation as one of Russia’s wealthiest men made him a prime candidate for sanctions.

Usmanov, who has Russian and Uzbek citizenship, is reported to mainly reside in his native Uzbekistan. He has said that he retired from business activity to focus on his philanthropic projects.

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Alisher Usmanov

Read also: Hamburg Court Prohibits Journalists from Calling Usmanov ‘Putin’s Favourite Oligarch’

In a precedent-setting decision, the Hamburg Regional Court ruled in favour of EU-sanctioned billionaire Alisher Usmanov in his dispute with the Austrian newspaper Kurier, finding the newspaper’s claim that Usmanov is “one of Putin’s favorite oligarchs” to be defamatory. EU Today obtained exclusive insight into Usmanov’s legal proceedings.

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