Roman Abramovich sues Australian publisher over Putin claims
Roman Abramovich, the owner of English Premier League giants Chelsea, is suing the Australian arm of News Corp’s HarperCollins over a book featuring allegations that he bought the football club on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The fight with HarperCollins concerns the book it published
in April 2020 – Putin’s People: How the KGB took back Russia and then took on
the West – written by Catherine Belton, a former Financial Times Moscow
correspondent.
The book includes claims from Sergei Pugachev, another
billionaire Russian and former member of Mr Putin’s inner circle, that Mr
Abramovich bought the current Champions League title holders under the personal
orders of the President.
The Chelsea owner lodged a defamation action in the Federal
Court of Australia on Tuesday against HarperCollins Australia. HarperCollins is
wholly owned by News Corp.
Mr Abramovich, a Russian-Israeli oligarch, bought Chelsea,
an EPL team based in West London, in 2003 and pumped millions of dollars into
the club to make it one of the league’s elite “big six”. Chelsea has won 17
major trophies since 2003, include the EPL five times and the Champions League
twice, most recently in 2021.
The billionaire’s claim against HarperCollins Australia
relates to the distribution and publishing of Putin’s People. It alleges the
publisher was warned on July 23, 2020, that the book was defamatory, ahead of
its sale beginning on August 5.
Mr Abramovich alleges eight imputations he says are
defamatory through the book.
They include that he allegedly has a corrupt relationship
with Mr Putin, acting on his direction and operating as his “cashier” as the
custodian of slush funds that can be accessed and used by Mr Putin personally.
He claims a similar imputation was made with regards to former Russian
president Boris Yeltsin.
Another alleged imputation is that: “[Mr Abramovich] had
purchased Chelsea Football Club at the secret direction of President Putin, in
order to infiltrate, manipulate and corrupt the British elite, with the intent
of spreading Russian state influence in the UK, and of gaining influence for
Russia with FIFA.”
Another is that “[Mr Abramovich] had moved to New York at
the direction of Vladimir Putin in order to cultivate influence with the family
of Donald Trump on the Kremlin’s behalf”.
Mr Pugachev made the claim regarding Chelsea in London’s
High Court in 2018, but a judge branded his witness statements as
“self-serving” and “impossible to believe”. The book published last year
interviewed Mr Pugachev and repeated the claims.
In March, Mr Abramovich launched a defamation action against
HarperCollins and Ms Belton in London’s High Court. The Australian action does
not include Ms Belton.
Mr Abramovich is seeking a court order for the book to be
recalled and destroyed in Australia and for HarperCollins Australia to be
stopped from publishing the book and the alleged defamatory imputations.
He is making an aggravated damages claim, where the cap on
damages payments would no longer apply.
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