Three Russian oligarchs who've previously sued over the publication of the Trump-Russia dossier have opened a new lawsuit in DC's local court against British agent-turned-researcher Christopher Steele and his company Orbis Business Intelligence Limited.
The claim, filed more than a year after the publication of the dossier that Steele wrote, alleges that its contents defamed Russian billionaires Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven and German Khan. None of the parties in the lawsuit are based in DC, meaning it may not be able to move forward in that court. Together, the three Russian men own stakes in Alfa Bank, the Russian bank that the dossier said assisted Russian operatives and Russian President Vladimir Putin in attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election and other allegedly criminal acts. Alfa Bank denies this.
The trio of Fridman, Aven and Khan have brought similar defamation cases against Fusion GPS, which commissioned the dossier, and BuzzFeed, which published it online in January 2017, in New York state court and the federal court in DC.
