How a Russian oligarch is using British courts to silence a tiny team of Norwegian journalists

On 24 September, a legal courier stepped into the offices of the Barents Observer in the town of Kirkenes, in Norway’s extreme north. She handed over a packet of papers that might destroy the tiny news website. Inside was a 33-page legal claim that alleged the Barents Observer had defamed the Russian oligarch and fishing billionaire Vitaly Orlov. The complaint had not been lodged in a court in Norway, nor in Russia, where Orlov lives and where his company is headquartered.

Orlov had chosen the high court in London. “The lawsuit itself is absurd,” said Barents Observer editor Thomas Nilsen. “There is nothing wrong with the reporting we have done… He has chosen the Barents Observer because we are small; he knows that he can bankrupt us.” Legal campaigners from the Index on Censorship said they intend to file a media freedom alert to the Council of Europe’s Safety of Journalists Platform, warning that the case had the hallmarks of a “strategic lawsuit against public participation” or SLAPP.

The location was a red flag, they said. Thanks to favourable defamation laws and astronomical legal costs, UK courts are a prime destination for companies and powerful people seeking to quash uncomfortable stories. According to the court filing, Orlov is claiming damages and an injunction against the news website. He said it has caused him serious reputational harm in a series of five articles that referred to the sanctioning of his company Norebo JSC by the European Union.

Orlov denies this and says he is not politically connected to or controlled by the Russian state; has not personally been sanctioned; has not allowed Norebo’s vessels to be used for espionage or sabotage directed at EU or Norwegian infrastructure; and his vessels are not a security risk to Norway or anyone else. In May last year, the EU sanctioned Norebo, saying its vessels were suspected of conducting espionage on behalf of the Russian state and showed “movement patterns [that] align with malign objectives, such as repeatedly being in the vicinity of or loitering near critical infrastructure and military sites”.

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Since 2002, the Barents Observer has covered one of the most remote and geopolitically contested reaches of Europe. Their offices in Kirkenes are a 15-minute drive from the border with Russia. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the website, with help from foundations and universities, has employed exiled Russian journalists. This gives them a unique ability to cover what is going on just across the border – and there is a lot going on as Russia builds up its military, fishing and trade infrastructure in the huge Arctic port of Murmansk.

The Norwegian fishing village of Kirkenes, where the Barents Observer is based. The Barents Observer has been a target of the Russia authorities in the past. In 2015, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation reported that Nilsen had been sacked at the behest of the Russian intelligence services. The team reconstituted as the Independent Barents Observer , collectively owned by its staff. Last year, the website was designated an “undesirable organisation” by the Russian state.

Orlov’s lawsuit meets the threshold of a SLAPP, said Jessica Ní Mhainín, co-founder and co-chair of the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition. These are lawsuits typically used by companies or wealthy people to tie up their critics in legal costs and processes. According to a 2020 report by the Foreign Policy Centre, the UK courts were almost as frequently used for this kind of legal threat as the 27 EU countries and the US combined. “With SLAPPs, we’re looking at the process being the punishment, and in the UK that’s very easily done,” said Ní Mhainín. In a statement, Orlov’s law firm Devonshires Solicitors said the allegation that the litigation was intended “to intimidate journalists or shut the newspaper down, is entirely rejected”.

“Presenting this as an attempt to silence journalists is ridiculous. When journalists make false allegations and refuse to correct them, they are responsible like anyone else,” the statement said. “Barents chose to publish in English, to an English-speaking audience, and now cries foul that it faces proceedings in England. Any jurisdictional dispute is for the court.” Other aspects of the case that made it consistent with other SLAPPs, according to Ní Mhainín, were the size of the news outlet and its inability to pay for a legal defence, let alone potentially pay for Orlov’s costs.

“We believe that the reason why Orlov, as a billionaire, is hitting us, is to scare us and to scare other medias from writing about his businesses, but then he has met the wrong journalists,” said Nilsen. “We will not let Russian fear get a foothold on the Norwegian side of the border. So we are not afraid, and we will continue to write about Russian fishing businesses when interesting news for the public appears.” Photographs by Getty Images, Getty Images / Bloomberg, Getty Images / Photon-Photos Justice Courts Norway Russia Journalism