Court keeps Labour lord’s hourly pay from Kazakh-linked company private

A Labour peer has been able to keep his hourly earn­ings from a Kazakh-linked com­pa­ny pri­vate dur­ing an ongo­ing High Court bat­tle, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism can report.

Lord Evans of Watford is a direc­tor of Jusan Technologies Limited, a Kazakh-linked invest­ment hold­ing com­pa­ny that sued TBIJ, The Telegraph and openDemocracy for defama­tion over arti­cles pub­lished in ear­ly 2022. The claim against the Telegraph was set­tled in January 2024. The claims against TBIJ and openDemocracy continue.

Jusan Technologies sub­mit­ted details of Evans’s hourly earn­ings to sup­port its case for seri­ous finan­cial loss — it said that Evans and oth­er direc­tors had to divert sig­nif­i­cant man­age­ment time in order to “mit­i­gate rep­u­ta­tion­al harm” appar­ent­ly caused by the arti­cles. In the UK, a body that trades for prof­it has to prove seri­ous finan­cial loss to suc­cess­ful­ly sue under defama­tion law.

“This is quin­tes­sen­tial­ly pri­vate infor­ma­tion,” Justin Rushbrooke KC, Jusan’s bar­ris­ter, told the court at a hear­ing in July last year. “There is clear evi­dence that none of the four indi­vid­u­als want their salary or hourly rate or annu­al pay to be pub­licly dis­closed. They are not par­ties to the lit­i­ga­tion and they are ask­ing, through us – indeed, it is our duty as their employ­er, or for­mer employ­er – to seek the court’s protection.”

While grant­i­ng the request to not reveal hourly pay, Mr Justice Nicklin the judge hear­ing the case, said: “It’s not at all sur­pris­ing that media organ­i­sa­tions, or those con­nect­ed with or con­cerned in the exer­cise of free­dom of expres­sion and open jus­tice, will want prop­er rigour to be adopt­ed to what might be called open jus­tice issues.”

Nicklin grant­ed the appli­ca­tion by Jusan Technologies to keep pri­vate the hourly rates of Evans and two oth­er com­pa­ny direc­tors for work they did in response to TBIJ’s arti­cle. The total amounts, how­ev­er, were not redact­ed; Evans was paid a total of $6,000 for his work appar­ent­ly mit­i­gat­ing loss caused by the TBIJ and Telegraph articles.

As one of the direc­tors of Jusan Technologies, Evans signed a key legal doc­u­ment set­ting out the company’s case against TBIJ.

Yerbol Orynbayev, the for­mer deputy prime min­is­ter of Kazakhstan, was paid $64,000 for his work appar­ent­ly mit­i­gat­ing loss caused by the TBIJ and Telegraph arti­cles between March and August 2022, when he resigned as a director.

The pay­ments to Evans and Orynbayev are dwarfed by a £720,000 bill Jusan Technologies says it had to pay RJI Capital for pub­lic rela­tions work respond­ing to the three arti­cles. RJI Capital, reg­is­tered to an address in Mayfair, is owned by the US cor­po­rate inves­ti­ga­tor Ron Wahid. Wahid also became a direc­tor of Jusan Technologies in August 2022. Magellan Investment Holdings, a now-dis­solved com­pa­ny Wahid owned, held shares in Jusan Technologies until last August, a com­pa­ny fil­ing from last month shows. Orynbayev also had a stake in the com­pa­ny up until May 2022, anoth­er fil­ing shows.

In accounts filed in 2021, Jusan Technologies said it con­trolled Kazakh bank­ing enti­ties and oth­er assets with a total val­ue of almost $8bn. That year, Jusan Technologies changed own­er­ship from Kazakh char­i­ta­ble foun­da­tions set up by the for­mer pres­i­dent Nursultan Nazarbayev to a char­i­ta­ble enti­ty based in the US.

The law­suit against TBIJ, The Telegraph and openDemocracy has been clas­si­fied as a SLAPP – a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation – by a team of legal experts for the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom. The Council of Europe’s Safety for Journalists plat­form also put out an alert on the case.

In October, the gov­ern­ment enact­ed a new anti-SLAPPs pro­vi­sion as part of an eco­nom­ic crime law. It means a judge can dis­miss a case at an ear­ly stage if it is defined as a SLAPP, keep­ing costs down for defendants.

Jusan Technologies rejects claims its case is a SLAPP and says it is jus­ti­fi­ably pro­tect­ing its reputation.

TBIJ and openDemocracy have said they will defend the claims against them. TBIJ is prepar­ing to sub­mit a full defence to the claim.

Original source of sto­ry THE BUREAU OF INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM

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