Rosneft wins lawsuit against IStories for ‘Pirelli’ article

The Moscow Arbitration Court has fully satisfied Rosneft’s claim against the investigative outlet IStories and journalist Roman Shleynov. This was confirmed by the case card on the court’s website on July 15.

In it’s lawsuit, Rosneft demanded that IStories delete an investigative report, which claimed that the oil giant bought a stake in the Italian tire manufacturer Pirelli in 2014. Rosneft denies purchasing shares in the company, however, as IStories noted, a press releases about the deal was published on the oil company’s website, and a number of state news agencies wrote about it.

IStories journalist Roman Shleynov said that during the trial, Rosneft’s lawyers maintained that “Pirelli’s information about the sale of shares is untrue and contradictory.” “According to them, the Pirelli documents mean nothing, the Pirelli company doesn’t understand anything about Russian law. And the information from state news agencies doesn’t correspond to reality,” Shleynov said after the hearing.

The court ruled that IStories must delete the disputed claims in the article and publish a retraction, the outlet’s lawyers said. IStories plans to challenge the court’s decision.

In April, the Russian FSB raided the IStories newsroom and the apartment of the outlet’s editor-in-chief Roman Anin, in connection with a criminal case for violation of privacy. The case was launched back in 2016 over an article Anin wrote for Novaya Gazeta about a $100 million yacht belonging to Olga Rozhkova — the then-wife of Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin. Anin is currently a witness in the case.