
Yevgeny Prigozhin
The Russian oligarch and politician filed a civil defamation lawsuit in March 2021 against Catherine Belton, journalist and author of the book Putin’s People, and HarperCollins, publisher of the said book. The lawsuit concerns statements in the book ‘Putin’s People’, which he claimed were untrue or inaccurate. While Abramovich’s lawyer denied any sort of coordination, the lawsuit was one of five lawsuits filed in the same week by Russian oligarchs – three of whom were represented by the same lawyer – as well as the state oil company Rosneft. Had the libel trial gone ahead in the high court, the legal bill was expected to have exceeded £10 million.