![\"\"](\"https:\/\/static.euronews.com\/website\/images\/logos\/logo-euronews-stacked-outlined-72x72-grey-9.svg\"){kind=logo}
\n ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
\n ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
The Council of the European Union could be forced to defend itself in a Hamburg court in what lawyers say would be a first-of-its-kind defamation action linked to an EU sanctions decision\u2014if an appeal now pending before Germany\u2019s Federal Court of Justice succeeds, according to filings seen by Euronews.<\/p>\n
The case targets the Council\u2019s statement of reasons adopted in September 2023 for listing businessman Alisher Usmanov. Usmanov\u2019s lawyer, Hamburg-based Joachim Steinhoefel, argues that key assertions relied on by the Council have since been shown to be unjustified.<\/p>\n
One passage stated that Usmanov \u201creportedly fronted for President Putin and solved his business problems\u201d, a claim the Council sourced to Forbes. Steinhoefel challenged that before the Hamburg Regional Court, which held the allegation unlawful. Forbes has appealed on jurisdiction and defends the original article as protected opinion rather than a verifiable fact.<\/p>\n
\u201cA journalist\u2019s expression of opinion cannot serve as a basis for sanctions. The Council cannot publish it as a purported statement of fact if the author has clarified it was opinion,\u201d Steinhoefel told Euronews.<\/p>\n
Steinhoefel also points to a claim in Austrian newspaper Kurier that President Putin called Usmanov \u201chis favourite oligarch\u201d\u2014which, he says, has been ruled unlawful and banned from dissemination\u2014as well as a tweet the Council cited that was later retracted.<\/p>\n
According to Steinhoefel, hundreds of articles, including pieces in major European outlets, have been removed or corrected\u2014among them reports alleging ties between Usmanov and Russia\u2019s political leadership, claims that sit at the heart of the EU\u2019s listing rationale. He says more than sixty court judgments or binding undertakings have required media and politicians to stop repeating such allegations. This week, he claimed, an important European newspaper executed a cease-and-desist undertaking and withdrew all claims of editorial manipulation at Kommersant, Usmanov\u2019s business daily\u2014claims that mirrored those made by the Council of the European Union.<\/p>\n
Case focuses on Council’s use of media reports<\/p>\n
\u201cOur concrete examples appear to show that the Council does not meaningfully verify sources and is satisfied with unverified press cuttings\u2014even where the author recants, including in court,\u201d he said. In his view, that falls short of the EU case-law standard that allows the Council to cite press material only when drawn from multiple independent sources, with sufficiently specific facts, and where the reports are reliable and consistent with the underlying record.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit also attacks another passage of the Council\u2019s reasons as defamatory: \u201cFurthermore, he is a leading businessperson operating in Russia and a businessperson involved in an economic sector providing a substantial source of revenue to the Government of the Russian Federation \u2026 Therefore he actively supported the Russian government\u2019s policies of destabilisation of Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steinhoefel counters that Usmanov is branded as \u201cactively supporting\u201d destabilisation solely because he holds shares in a holding company that generates profits and is, by law, required to pay taxes. \u201cThe exercise of a lawful, constitutionally protected economic liberty (owning shares) together with compliance with a legal duty (paying taxes) is being re-labelled as geopolitical support,\u201d he argues. \u201cTo avoid that label one would have to evade taxes\u2014a crime\u2014or abandon one\u2019s business\u2014an unreasonable demand in any rule-of-law order.\u201d He calls the inference \u201ca perverse inversion of basic rights\u201d.<\/p>\n
Steinhoefel\u2019s case characterises the Council\u2019s approach as \u201ccoercion by proxy\u201d: targeting businesspeople said to have influence over Moscow in order to conscript them into exerting pressure on the government to change course. That, he says, offends the democratic principle that lawful private conduct should not be instrumentalised as leverage in foreign policy.<\/p>\n
Because EU courts do not provide a tort-style action for defamation against EU institutions, Steinhoefel first sought to serve proceedings on the Council in Hamburg. An appeals court held the Council enjoys immunity from being sued in German courts. Steinhoefel claims this violates Article 19(4) of Germany\u2019s Basic Law, which guarantees a right to judicial redress for infringements of basic rights.<\/p>\n
He has now appealed to the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe. The suit does not challenge the sanctions listing itself; it seeks an order prohibiting the Council from further disseminating the contested statements. A decision is pending.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ADVERTISEMENT The Council of the European Union could be forced to defend itself in a Hamburg court in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[131751,55922,2000,299,1824,12836],"class_list":{"0":"post-377602","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-alisher-usmanov","9":"tag-defamation","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-germany","13":"tag-sanctions-against-russia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115100740768933210","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}