Cobalt has successfully represented the Baltic Center for Investigative Journalism Re:Baltica in a defamation dispute related to its 2019 article “Mega-donor to pro-Russian party benefits from Magnitsky and Azerbaijani laundromats.”
The Baltic Center for Investigative Journalism Re:Baltica is a non-profit organization that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. Founded in August 2011, it focuses on in-depth investigations of socially important issues in the Baltic region, such as corruption, crime, finances, entrepreneurship, health, human rights, and disinformation.
According to Cobalt, “on September 14, 2022, the Supreme Court’s Action Meeting delivered a decision to refuse to initiate cassation proceedings, therefore upholding the Riga Regional Court’s judgment of November 26, 2021, which dismissed the claim for defamation, retraction of the article, and compensation for moral damages in its entirety.”
According to the firm, “the Court held, inter alia, that the applicant's conduct in not answering the journalists' questions and not commenting on the transactions had contributed to the context of the publication, the background to which left unanswered questions for the neutral outside reader and spread doubt as to the purpose of the transfers received. Significantly, the court also agreed with the arguments that journalists cannot, under the norms governing the media environment, disclose all sources of information, sometimes including documents that would point to the sources.”
Cobalt’s team was led by Senior Associate Linda Birina.