Russian Businessman Gubarev Appeals Decision to Publish Court Documents in BuzzFeed Case

WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th March, 2019) Russian businessman Aleksej Gubarev appealed a court decision to publish documents relating to the case he lost against BuzzFeed.

"Gubarev, XBT Holding S.A., and Webzilla, Inc., hereby provide notice of their appeal... to the Court's Order of February 28, 2019 (D.E. 431) allowing New York Times' Motion to Intervene and for Access to Judicial Records," the document said on Monday.

Previous appeals filed in January were rejected by the court. Gubarev argued that publishing the documents would disclose sensitive financial data and information related to the defendant's attempts to link the entities to pornographic internet traffic.

The Cyprus-based Gubarev and his companies XBT Holdings and Webzilla, who were mentioned in the notorious Trump dossier, had originally filed a libel suit against BuzzFeed and its editor-in-chief Ben Smith for publishing incorrect information in the notorious Trump dossier without worrying about the veracity of the document.

A US judge claimed BuzzFeed complied with the US law on fair quoting that protects media from libel suits.

In 2017, BuzzFeed published a compromising dossier on Trump, compiled by ex-officer of the British intelligence services Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS, financed by the Democratic Party. Gubarev was mentioned in an unconfirmed dossier as a person allegedly carrying out communication between the Russian special services and Trump's campaign headquarters. The presence of any ties between Trump and Moscow is denied both by the Kremlin and the White House.