The Uzbek-born Forbes list veteran has been surprisingly successful at challenging media claims that made him a target of EU sanctions. Faulty reports appear to be part of an ongoing media campaign against the billionaire to maintain sanctions pressure, observers say.
Of all the billionaires sanctioned by the West following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, few have been the subject of more speculation than the 71-year-old metals and telecoms magnate Alisher Usmanov.
He has been named as the alleged owner of luxury villas and the world’s largest yacht (all of which apparently belong to trusts), was said to have a stash of Fabergé eggs (which turned out to be souvenir replicas) and has been accused of pulling the strings in sports ranging from Premier League football to fencing.
In what may cause some discomfort to investigators and policymakers trying to clamp down on pro-Kremlin elites, the bulk of these allegations have turned out to be at the least unfounded, and at most – untrue.
In the latest instance, a major German TV network decided to not defend claims made on air by a star investigative journalist, who alleged that Usmanov had orchestrated a “system of referee bribery” and corruption in international fencing during his longtime tenure as president of the International Fencing Federation (FIE).
Usmanov served as FIE president from 2008 until early 2022, when he voluntarily suspended his duties after being hit with EU sanctions, although he remains president-elect.
This fall Usmanov took legal action against the broadcaster, ARD, and the report’s author Hans-Joachim (“Hajo”) Seppelt. A German court in Hamburg subsequently found the accusations against Usmanov to be “inadmissible, suspicion-based reporting” and banned them from distribution.
On October 23, ARD through its broadcaster Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) waived its right to appeal the Hamburg court’s decision and recognised the ban on Seppelt’s allegation as “equivalent in legal force and effect to a legally binding ruling,” according to a letter addressed to Usmanov’s legal representatives.
This means the broadcaster effectively acknowledged that its claims about Usmanov were false, his representatives said in a statement. Two other German-language news outlets that reprinted ARD’s allegations corrected their materials after being contacted by Usmanov’s lawyers.
Joachim Steinhöfel, a media rights attorney representing Usmanov, said ARD made “the right decision in view of the fact that there is no factual basis for the allegation.” Usmanov earlier filed a criminal complaint against Seppelt in Germany for “spreading defamatory and conspiratorial allegations,” which is currently under review.
Earlier, FIE Interim President Emmanuel Katsiadakis rejected claims of referee bribery in the FIE, saying the German outlet had taken as its source a former fencing referee who had failed to qualify in 2023. The FIE’s system of assigning referees by computer just half an hour before each bout also served to eliminate any possibility of manipulation, he said.
Two other cases of alleged referee manipulation that were cited by ARD as evidence of widespread corruption in fencing have since been dismissed by U.S. Olympic arbitrators. At least one case had already been dismissed before the ARD report aired, but the report apparently made no mention of this fact.
Usmanov vs. the media
Usmanov, whose wealth is estimated at $13.4 billion, was one of the first and most recognisable individuals to be hit with EU sanctions in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The EU described him as “a pro-Kremlin leading businessperson” with particularly close ties to the Russian president, and he was placed under sanctions by the US, UK and others.
But in the past few years, the law-trained tycoon has won a string of surprising victories in court against media claims that were used to justify sanctions against him.
In early 2024, he won a lawsuit against Forbes magazine after the latter failed to back up its claim that Usmanov had “fronted for Putin” and solved his business problems. This claim was repeated as a key justification in Usmanov’s EU sanctions reasoning.
In a separate instance, the Austrian newspaper Kurier was banned by a court from stating that Putin had called Usmanov “one of his favourite oligarchs.” The court found this claim to be unsubstantiated and defamatory.
Overall, the billionaire’s representatives say they have successfully challenged several dozen claims published by European media through both out-of-court and litigation proceedings. These have included false reports that Usmanov or his family members are the owners of properties in Europe, which resulted in sanctions being placed against one of Usmanov’s sisters. Both have been contesting their restrictions in the top EU court, with challenges to media claims emerging as a key component of this fight.
European legal experts who have been following Usmanov’s case say the sheer volume of discredited media claims about the billionaire stands out among the coverage of other sanctioned individuals – and to a large extent explains why Usmanov appears so intent on challenging anyone who repeats them.
“It is not often that you see Russian tycoons win against respectable Western media outlets in Western courts, which makes Usmanov’s case an interesting one to watch,” said an attorney based in Berlin, who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the topic. “It also makes you question the extent to which our own media are following journalistic ethics when covering prominent individuals against the backdrop of highly polarising geopolitical events.”
The attorney, who has consulted sanctioned individuals on their rights under European law, added that “whatever one may think of him, Usmanov appears to be the subject of a large-scale negativity campaign after years of being described by Russia watchers as a ‘Putin oligarch.’”
“This has created an environment where claims about him are often taken at face value and repeated by other media without basic fact-checking,” the attorney said. “Usmanov appears to be playing a game of whack-a-mole with these reports, with new accusations continuously popping up in parallel with the West’s resolve to maintain sanctions against him. And it looks like he’s set on going all the way with challenging both the sanctions and the media reports on which they’re based.”
As European policymakers rushed to compile and expand sanctions lists in what will soon be a 15th round of sanctions, observers have pointed to the sometimes questionable evidence – ranging from Wikipedia articles to AI-generated text – that has made its way into the working papers.
Given that EU sanctions by necessity rely heavily on reports in the media, there are concerns that shaky evidence could undermine their foundation and make them vulnerable to challenges in court. A handful of individuals sanctioned over Ukraine have already succeeded in getting sanctions lifted, and even more are currently contesting them.
“For sanctions to be effective, it is imperative that they be based on reports that are as accurate and as thoroughly fact-checked as possible,” the Berlin-based attorney said. “Otherwise, policymakers risk making decisions on the basis of faulty information, which could ultimately undermine the legitimacy of sanctions as a key Western tool for counteracting Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.”
