Sechin Sues Forbes for ‘Highest-Paid Executive’ Rating

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – May 28, 2014) Rosneft head Igor Sechin has filed a lawsuit against journalists and publishers of the Russian edition of Forbes and Komsomolskaya Pravda for an article he says threatens to damage his business reputation.

The lawsuit, filed on May 15, demands that the journalists and publishers behind a November report describing him as the “highest-paid executive in Russia” retract the statement and delete the material from their online resources, according to the Savyolovsky District Court’s website.

“The publication contains information that does not correspond to reality. We believe that citizens of Russia have the right to receive objective information based on verified facts, and not on rumors and gossip,” Izvestia cited an unidentified representative of Rosneft as saying in comments about the lawsuit.

The contested report was first printed in Forbes under the headline “25 Highest-Paid Executives in Russia” and was later reprinted by Komsomolskaya Pravda.

Sechin also took issue with the publications’ claim that Rosneft had taken out a loan from Gazprombank to fund a purchase of Rosneft stock last September, a statement made in the Forbes article titled “The Last Conquistador: How Igor Sechin Is Fighting for Gas Supremacy.”

According to Izvestia, Sechin said in court documents that he considered various information in that report to be misleading, namely that the private investment group United Capital Partners, or UCP – whose president Ilya Shcherbovich is a member of Rosneft’s management board – was involved in financial processes at the state energy company.

Komsomolskaya Pravda has already deleted the material in question from its website.

Vladimir Sungorkin, the publication’s editor-in-chief, has also said he is prepared to issue a retraction, as requested by Sechin. Forbes, on the other hand, has so far remained silent on the matter.

[featured image is file photo]