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Also see: Alfa Bank; Mikhail Fridman; German Khan; dossier; Fusion GPS; Glenn Simpson; Christopher Steele; Mi6;
Jump to: 2017; 2018;
Undated: Petr Olegovich Aven (also transliterated Pyotr Aven; born March 16, 1955) is a Russian businessman, economist and politician. One of the leaders of Russia's transition to market economy and prominent Russian oligarch,[1][2][3][4] he now heads Alfa-Bank, Russia's largest commercial bank. He is also a member of the Board of Directors at LetterOne Group.
In August 2018 he was worth around US$4.6 billion[5]
In 2005, a United States district court in Washington, D.C. dismissed a 2000 libel suit by Aven and fellow Alfa Bank owner Mikhail Fridman against the Center for Public Integrity over an online article which included a suggestion that they had been involved in drug-running and organized crime; the federal judge ruled that there was no evidence of actual malice on the part of the publication and that Fridman and Aven were limited public figures regarding the public controversy involving corruption in post-Soviet Russia.[14][15][16][17]
In May 2017 Aven, along with fellow Alfa Bank owners Mikhail Fridman and German Khan, filed a defamation lawsuit against BuzzFeed for publishing the unverified Donald Trump–Russia dossier,[18][19][20] which alleges financial ties and collusion between Putin, Trump, and the three bank owners.[21][22] In October 2017 Aven, Fridman, and Khan also filed a libel suit against the private-investigation firm Fusion GPS and its founder Glenn Simpson, who had commissioned former MI6 agent Christopher Steele to compile the dossier, for circulating the dossier among journalists and allowing it to be published.[14] In May 2018, the Kremlin released a statement noting that Aven, Fridman and Khan were not representing interests of Putin or the Russian government. The statement followed a meeting between the Kremlin, Aven and Fridman.[23] In April 2018 Aven, Fridman, and Khan filed a libel suit against Steele in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia,[24][25] but the suit was dismissed with prejudice the following August.[26]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petr_Aven
-- 2017 --
October 5: 3 Russian Businessmen File Second Defamation Lawsuit In Connection with 'Steele Dossier'
https://www.rferl.org/a/steele-dossier-trump-russia-alfa-bank-fusion-gps-aven-fridman-khan/28774687.html
-- 2018 --
May 23: A dozen prominent anti-Kremlin thinkers and activists have published an open letter condemning a major Washington research organization for hosting an off-the-record round-table dinner for two oligarchs listed on a U.S. Treasury-issued registry of 210 wealthy Russians identified as close to President Vladimir Putin.
The Atlantic Council, which hosted Pyotr Aven and Mikhail Fridman, principals of the U.S.-sanctioned Alfa Group, published the condemnatory letter on its website before the private dinner Monday, which was internally billed as "an outlook for the Russian economy in an era of escalating sanctions."
The open letter criticizing the Atlantic Council, co-signed by major Kremlin detractors such as former world chess champion Garry Kasparov and prominent scholars Andrei Piontkovsky and Sarah Chayes, was published in tandem with an Atlantic Council response, in which it defended its decision. The council said that "in order to do our work well — in this case concerning Russia — we need the best information and the best networks possible."
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-think-tank-takes-heat-for-hosting-putin-linked-oligarchs/4406945.html
August 21: Author of Trump-Russia dossier wins libel case in US court
Suit against Christopher Steele by three Russian oligarchs thrown out by judge
The former MI6 officer Christopher Steele has won a legal battle in the United States against three Russian oligarchs who sued him over allegations made in his dossier about the Trump campaign and its links with Moscow.
The oligarchs – Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven and German Khan – claimed that Steele and his intelligence firm, Orbis, defamed them in the dossier, which was leaked and published in early 2017. The Russians own stakes in Moscow-based Alfa Bank. All are billionaires.
On Monday, a judge in the District of Columbia, Anthony C Epstein, upheld a motion by Steele to have the oligarchs’ case thrown out. Epstein did not determine whether the dossier – which Donald Trump has repeatedly dismissed as “fake” – was “accurate or not accurate”.
But the judge concluded that it was covered by the US first amendment, which protects free speech. He ruled that the oligarchs had failed to prove a key part of their case: that Steele knew that some information in the dossier was inaccurate, and had acted “with reckless disregard as to its falsity”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/21/author-of-trump-russia-dossier-wins-libel-case-in-us-court-christopher-steele
September 26: In Steele dossier suit, a skirmish over Russian oligarchs' international profile
Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven and German Khan, all billionaire investors in Russia’s Alfa Bank, allege they were defamed by one of the reports included in the dossier that suggested a longstanding, shady relationship between the men and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/steele-dossier-suit-skirmish-russian-oligarchs-international-profile/story?id=58111345
October 15: Was There a Connection Between a Russian Bank and the Trump Campaign?
A team of computer scientists sifted through records of unusual Web traffic in search of answers.
In June, 2016, after news broke that the Democratic National Committee had been hacked, a group of prominent computer scientists went on alert. Reports said that the infiltrators were probably Russian, which suggested to most members of the group that one of the country’s intelligence agencies had been involved. They speculated that if the Russians were hacking the Democrats they must be hacking the Republicans, too. “We thought there was no way in the world the Russians would just attack the Democrats,”
After the Soviet Union collapsed, in 1991, [Mikhail] Fridman joined the scramble to befriend members of the new government and amass a fortune with help from the state. Along with an economist named Petr Aven, who had previously served as the country’s minister for foreign economic relations, Fridman built Alfa Bank into one of the most successful businesses in the new Russia. Its parent company, Alfa Group, now controls the country’s largest private bank, along with financial institutions in several European nations.
Alfa is still closely tied to the Russian system, but Fridman and Aven live much of the time in the United Kingdom. If there was a communications link with the Trump Organization, it might have been created without their knowledge.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/15/was-there-a-connection-between-a-russian-bank-and-the-trump-campaign
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