Court cut Kazakhstan tycoon's claims 1000-fold in a case against Vremya magazine

The hearings on the case of Kazakhstan tycoon Alidzhan Ibragimov against Vremya magazine and journalist Gennady Benditskiy finished on Friday, September 28, in Almaty. The court ordered both the magazine and the journalist to pay the entrepreneur 100 thousand tenge ($666) each, Forbes Kazakhstan writes. With this ruling the judge dramatically tamed the appetite of Alidzhan Ibragimov who claimed the defendants should pay 100 million tenge ($666 thousand) each in a compensation for his moral damages. According to the defendants’ lawyer Balentina Zhukovskaya, Vremya is not going to appeal the ruling. It is unclear whether the plaintiff’s lawyers will appeal against the court's decision. Alidzhan Ibragimov filed the claim over the article called Incredible Greed Ride written by Gennady Benditskiy and published in Vremya on May 24, 2012. The article states that the tycoon willfully occupied a land lot aimed for public use in Butakovka gorge near Almaty and by doing so isolated the neighboring sheep herder’s family from the world. Later Vremya published a refutation and offered an apology to Ibragimov and the readers for incorrect information, and the article was deleted from its website. Alidzhan Ibragimov is ranked the second in the list of 50 richest people of Kazakhstan. Forbes estimates the wealth of the 58-y.o. businessman at $2.9 billion. Ibragimov is a co-owner of ENRC company along with Aleksander Mashkevich and Patokh Shodiyev. ENRC is one of the leading diversified natural resources groups with integrated mining, processing, energy, logistical and marketing operations. ENRC operates in Kazakhstan, China, Russia, Brazil and Africa (the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Mozambique and South Africa). ENRC currently employs over 70,000 people, of which 65,000 are located in Kazakhstan.