Newspaper RBK crosses out headline and two paragraphs in Rosneft article with black streaks

Acting upon a court ruling that its editorial board refute information in a March 11, 2016 article on Russian oil giant Rosneft, publication RBK crossed out the article’s headline and two paragraphs on its website. The information presented in these particular fragments, the ruling specified, did not “correspond to reality”.

The removed text stated that Rosneft head Igor Sechin had asked the government to limit the rights of company shareholders so as to prevent Britain’s BP from wielding a blocking stake. The full content of the deleted fragments now appears at the end of the article, along with a description of the court decision.

Rosneft filed a lawsuit against RBK after the latter published an article called “Sechin has asked the government to protect the Rosneft from BP” in April 2016. The publication said that the head of Rosneft asked the government to forbid the future buyer of a 19.5 percent stake in the company from entering into a shareholders’ agreement with another investor – BP – so as to prevent the latter from gaining a blocking stake in the Russian oil giant.

Rosneft claims that the article caused damage to the company’s reputation and estimates this damage at 3.179 billion rubles (approximately $50.3 million). It also claimed that this damage had allegedly brought about a deterioration in Rosneft’s relations with BP. RBK maintains, however, that the companies’ relationship has not deteriorated, but has, in fact, improved with the launch of a joint venture.

Previously RBK claimed that the accuracy of the information published in the article was confirmed, in particular, by the fact that future buyer of the 19.5 percent stake in question has been obliged to enter into a shareholders' agreement with the public Russian shareholder Rosneftegas. “By signing this agreement, the buyers of the 19.5 percent in Rosneft (namely, a Glencore and Qatar Investment Authority consortium) will not be able to merge its stake with that of BP and veto an decisions made by the board of Russia's largest oil companies,” the newspaper wrote.

On March 1, 2017, an appeals court upheld the decision made on Rosneft’s lawsuit, thereby obliging RBK to refute the information in its article. However, the court did overturn the ruling that RBK offer monetary compensation in the amount of 390,000 rubles (approximately $6,777).