Moscow Arbitration Court ruled on the claim of JSC Commercial Sea Port Olya, which required the publisher of the online publication RBC to refute information about US sanctions against the general director of the port.
The claims of JSC “Commercial Sea Port of Olya” were addressed to LLC Businesspress, the founder of the online media RBC.ru.
JSC “Commercial Sea Port of Olya” reported that on September 10, 2024, RBC.ru published an article stating: “The United States has imposed sanctions against nine vessels flying the Russian flag, according to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Treasury. The sub-sanctioned vessels are named Boris Kustodiev, Composer Rachmaninov, Zakamsk, Omsky-103, Omsky-119, Port Olya-3, Port Olya-4, VAFA and VAFA-1. In addition, Russian Jamaldin Pashayev was included in the register. His full namesake is the CEO of the Commercial Sea Port of Olya (Astrakhan) company.”
JSC “Commercial Sea Port of Olya” stated that Alexander Melnikov, and not Jamaldin Pashayev, has actually been the CEO of the company since 2015.
According to the data from JSC “Commercial Sea Port of Olya”, after RBC published the information, “counterparts refuse to cooperate with JSC “Commercial Sea Port of Olya” due to their unwillingness to work with a company whose director has allegedly been sanctioned, as confirmed by AZM AGRO LLC’s letter No. 2, dated 31/10/2024. As a result, JSC “Commercial Sea Port of Olya” is suffering losses due to unreliable and unverified information that you have published.
JSC “Commercial Sea Port of Olya” demanded from LLC BusinessPress to refute the article.
The court rejected the claim of JSC “Commercial Sea Port of Olya”. Acordind to the court’s documents, on the date of the court session, changes were made to the RBC material and the text was as follows: “In addition, Russian Jamaldin Pashayev was included in the register. His full namesake was the CEO of the Commercial Sea Port of Olya (Astrakhan) company.
Jamaldin Pashayev was indeed the CEO of the port from 2002 to 2015. It is likely that the edit that RBC made saved the media from refutation.
According to the court’s documents, the disputed article was located at https://www.rbc.ru/politics/10/09/2024/66e06cL89a79474636051493. This material has now been deleted:
rbc.ruThe commercial sea port of Olya is located 100 km south of Astrakhan in the Volga River Delta at 67 km. The Volga-Caspian Canal is the largest Russian commercial port in the Caspian region. According to the auditors’ report for 2021, at that time 50% of the company belonged to Jamaldin Pashayev and 50% was owned by Livorna Trade Ltd. After 2021, the company does not disclose its shareholders.
