Vitaly Orlov v. The Barents Observer

Vitaly Orlov is the founder and sole owner of the Murmansk fishing group Norebo. On May 20, 2025, the Council of the EU added Norebo to its sanctions list over Russia’s destabilizing activities, stating that the company’s vessels had been involved in Russian state intelligence activities. Orlov himself was not sanctioned. In July 2025, Norway barred Norebo’s vessels from Norwegian ports and from fishing in Norwegian waters. Norebo is challenging the sanctions in the General Court of the European Union, where it also seeks €100,000 in compensation for harm to its reputation, and the ban on fishing in Norway’s economic zone in the Oslo District Court, which has listed the case for November 3, 2026. Between May 2025 and January 2026, The Barents Observer, a nonprofit outlet in Kirkenes, Norway, with a newsroom of six, published five articles on the sanctions against Norebo and on the company’s claim against Norway. In January 2026, Orlov’s London lawyers demanded that the outlet apologize, admit the articles were false, and remove them within 14 days, and on September 24, 2026, their representative delivered a defamation claim filed in the High Court of England and Wales by hand at the newsroom in Kirkenes. Orlov claims the articles caused “serious harm” to his reputation and seeks damages and an injunction against publishing “the same or similar imputations.” The amount claimed has not been disclosed. Orlov’s side argues that the case belongs in England because the outlet publishes in English and its website received 190,000 hits from the UK in 2025. The outlet says UK readers make up only 5% of its audience and that its articles cited the EU’s official decision and did not themselves establish any link between Norebo and intelligence work. The outlet and the Norwegian media lawyer Jon Wessel-Aas call the claim a SLAPP (a strategic lawsuit aimed at silencing criticism). Orlov’s lawyers deny this and say their client seeks an apology and compensation for false allegations. Editor-in-chief Thomas Nilsen has said the outlet cannot afford a defense and would go bankrupt if ordered to pay Orlov’s legal costs. In April 2026, Orlov’s lawyers also threatened the Norwegian trade paper Fiskeribladet with a claim in London.

The case will show whether an English court takes on a defamation claim against a foreign outlet with a small UK readership: under section 9 of the Defamation Act 2013, a claim against a defendant not domiciled in the UK goes ahead only if England and Wales is clearly the most appropriate place to bring it. It is also a rare claim by the owner of a Russian company under EU sanctions against the press over its reporting on those sanctions, brought while the company challenges the sanctions themselves in Luxembourg and Oslo.