Moscow's Alliance Legal law firm has successfully represented the interests of Mikhail Kiyko, Director General of the United Grain Company, in a claim before the Moscow Region's Khimki City Court, which ruled that an article appearing in The Moscow Post entitled "The General Millionaire Tries to Get to Zolotov's Deputy" was untrue.
According to Alliance Legal, "almost all experts in the field of PR and Internet are confident that the fight against negative PR, which is conducted against politicians or businessmen through so-called 'drain tanks' in the network, is very difficult. The problem is that, unlike the media community, resources that help to drain negatives and revelations belong to the 'gray' Internet zone: they are usually registered on the frontmen or companies, and are not official media. This is what makes it possible for an attacker to anonymously post deliberately false and insulting information against well-known businessmen, politicians, statesmen."
"Such registered publications have nothing common with freedom of speech," insisted Alliance Legal lawyer Artem Grishin. "They discredit the profession of a journalist, they pursue only mercantile interests aimed at causing reputational harm."
Alliance Legal reports that "this was not the first trial which culminated in satisfying the claims of Mr. Kiyko and the corporation he leaded. In December 2017, the Moscow Arbitration Court found the publication untrue, damaging the honor, dignity and business reputation Mr. Kiyko's and JSC United Grain Company reputation, posted on the Internet resource Russian Criminal under the title 'Caspian Aargo of Magomedovs.' Then, in July of this year, the Arbitration Court of Moscow satisfied a lawsuit against several Internet publications (Glavk.info, Kompromat1) that spread a knowingly false and undermining reputation of the plaintiff's publication entitled 'The Corruptor in the Shoulder Straps of Mikhail Kiyko Helps the Oligarch Magomedov Get Rich on Smuggling."
"In the production of arbitration courts, there are several other similar cases to protect Mr. Kiyko's honor, dignity, and business reputation including the corporation he leads," said Artem Grishin.
