Roman Abramovich v HarperCollins Publishers Limited

In determining the meaning of passages in a book, the court must assess the broad impression made on the ordinary reasonable reader by the publication taken as a whole. Context, including footnotes and the nature of the medium, is critical. The court must avoid over-elaborate or forensic analysis of individual passages.

Chase levels provide useful shorthand for degrees of defamatory allegation but are not a rigid framework. The repetition rule forms part of the overall exercise and cannot be applied mechanically. Statements are fact or opinion according to how they would strike the ordinary reasonable reader in context. A separate and distinct defamatory charge cannot be added merely because it arose from the same publication.

The claimant brought a libel action against the publisher and author of Putin’s People. He complained of 26 passages concerning his alleged relationship with President Putin and the Russian state, payments to Petromed, the sale of Sibneft, the purchase of Chelsea Football Club, his move to New York, his relationship with President Yeltsin, and litigation brought by Boris Berezovsky.

Nicklin J directed a trial of preliminary issues concerning natural and ordinary meaning, defamatory meaning, and whether the passages were statements of fact or opinion. The court considered the rival meanings advanced by the parties and determined only those preliminary issues.

1. Meaning. The passages, read in the context of the book as a whole, conveyed that the claimant was under President Putin’s control and had little choice but to make his fortune available for the use of President Putin and his regime. They conveyed, among other matters, that he invested in Chukotka, bought Chelsea Football Club at President Putin’s direction to increase Russian influence in the United Kingdom, shared most of the Sibneft sale proceeds with Putin’s associates, bought Rosneft shares at the Kremlin’s direction, and moved to New York to influence the Trump family.
2. The passages conveyed that the claimant donated $203 million to Petromed for medical equipment, that part of the money was transferred through offshore companies, and that it funded Bank Rossiya’s expansion. They did not convey that the claimant knew the money would be diverted or used as a Putin slush fund.
3. The passages concerning the Berezovsky litigation conveyed that Berezovsky claimed joint ownership of Sibneft and Rusal, that the claimant denied his ownership, and that the claimant won because he advanced a false case. They did not convey that the judge was improperly influenced by payments to her stepson. The payment was understood as remuneration for legal work, had been disclosed, and had not been objected to by Berezovsky.
4. The passages conveyed that the claimant acted as cashier to President Yeltsin and his family, providing money from his own business empire for their private purposes. The court rejected the proposed additional meaning that the claimant’s wealth had been acquired through corrupt or rigged privatisation as a separate charge.
5. All five meanings identified by the court were defamatory at common law. The allegations concerning the claimant’s reasons for making his fortune available, buying Chelsea, investing in Rosneft and moving to New York were statements of fact because they were verifiable and would strike the ordinary reasonable reader as factual assertions.

First-instance determination of preliminary issues in a libel claim. The court’s decision concerned meaning, defamatory tendency, and fact or opinion only; no substantive defences had yet been pleaded.