(WAN/IFEX) – The following is a WAN press release: Paris, 4 November 2004 International Press Groups Protest Against Russian Libel Award The World Association of Newspapers and the World Editors Forum have protested to Russian authorities against an excessive libel judgement in which the Kommersant newspaper has been ordered to pay US$11 million to a […]
(WAN/IFEX) – The following is a WAN press release:
Paris, 4 November 2004
International Press Groups Protest Against Russian Libel Award
The World Association of Newspapers and the World Editors Forum have protested to Russian authorities against an excessive libel judgement in which the Kommersant newspaper has been ordered to pay US$11 million to a Russian bank.
“We would like to draw your attention to the belief widely held among the global press that the award of such massive damages, which are almost 10 times higher than any sum previously awarded, might appear to be politically motivated and intended to intimidate critical media,” the Paris-based WAN and WEF said in a letter to V.F. Yakovlev, Chairman of Russia’s High Arbitration Court.
The Moscow Arbitration Court on October 20 ordered the daily Kommersant to pay Alfa-Bank, the country’s largest commercial bank, the equivalent of US$11 million in compensation for losses that the bank allegedly suffered following a report in June about “serious problems” at the bank during last summer’s financial crisis. Kommersant will appeal the award.
“We believe that moral (reputational) damages . . . must be proportionate to any offence that has been committed. Non-compliance with this condition, voluntarily or not, turns the court into a weapon for settling scores with a government-independent newspaper,” the letter from WAN and WEF said.
Read the full letter at: http://www.wan-press.org/article5614.html.
