The EU Reporter, an online news site that focuses on the news about the European Union, apologized to Russian businessman Oleg Deripaska. In a March 28 statement, the site wrote:

“On 19th March 2019 we published an article containing a number of factual inaccuracies relating to the Russian businessman, Oleg Deripaska and which wrongly inferred that Mr Deripaska has been an agent of the Kremlin in his business dealings.

“We have taken down the offending article and we apologise unreservedly to Mr Deripaska for publishing inaccurate statements and inferences.”

iMediaEthics has written to the EU Reporter for more information about its apology, what went wrong with its story, and if Deripaska threatened a lawsuit. We’ve also contacted Deripaska’s lawyer.

Deripaska sued the Associated Press for libel previously, as iMediaEthics has reported. He was upset over the Associated Press’s story reporting Paul Manafort “secretly worked” for Deripaska to promote Russian president Vladimir Putin. In 2017, his lawsuit was thrown out. As iMediaEthics wrote at the time:

The U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle dismissed the case this week because she found Deripaska is a “limited-purpose public figure” requiring him to meet a higher bar to prove libel, Politico reported. That standard included proving actual malice or reckless disregard of the truth, Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty reported, noting “the lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice.”

Further, Huvelle ruled that Deripaska’s lawsuit alleges the article linked him to Russian interference with the U.S. election, which she said the article did not do. “Deripaska has cherry-picked sentences and strung them together to give the AP’s article an effect it does not have when read in full,” according to Courthouse News.