Journalist against the largest metallurgical company in the world

Employees of the enterprise “ArcelorMittal Temirtau”, the Kazakh branch of the world’s largest metallurgical company “ArcelorMittal”, tried to bribe and blackmail journalist Oleg Gusev.

An active confrontation between the journalist of the Kazakh information agency “Inbusiness” Oleg Gusev and the company “ArcelorMittal Temirtau” (AMT) began last spring. Then Gusev posted on his page a photo of the Austrian singer Thomas Neuwirth, better known as the bearded woman Conchita Wurst – the winner of the Song Contest “Eurovision-2014” in Copenhagen.

The Kazakh journalist supplemented the image of Conchita with the caption “Miners and metallurgists, haven’t you lost?”, and then with a photo of Paramjit Kalon, General Director of “ArcelorMittal CIS”.

At AMT, the comparison Kalon with Wurst was considered offensive. They filed a lawsuit in August 2018 against Gusev to protect business reputation.

A trial in this fun case was held in January 2019. Judge of the Temirtau city court Tatyana Gavrichenkova did not find grounds for satisfying the lawsuit. However, while this legal story went on, AMT employees tried to put pressure on the journalist and even blackmail him. Oleg Gusev said to ACCA that after filing a lawsuit, AMT representatives first tried to make him keep silent for a fee. When he refused, there was an attempt to bribe the media direction, with whom the journalist c contributes.

“Alexey Agureev, Advisor to AMT’s General Director for Public Relations, offered this media an advertising contract in exchange for my silence, but was refused,” Gusev told ACCA.

And then, according to him, AMT direction found among its contractors a company in which Gusev’s son-in-law works and … blacklisted this company. The company immediately lost its contracts and opportunities to work. Well, then the same lawsuit followed, demanding to provide proof of the unconventional orientation of CEO Paramjit Kalon.

Meanwhile, the Legal director of “ArcelorMittal Temirtau” Galymzhan Kunakbaev tells Gusev’s son-in-law to calm down his relative-journalist, otherwise his company will get no chance. In October 2018, Gusev personally met Kunakbaev and was informed: “If you plead no defence, your son-in-law will again have the opportunity to work”.

The journalist agrees to this requirement, but in return asks for documentary proof of the deal. And AMT agrees to this! Kunakbaev concludes a written agreement with the journalist, which stipulates that AMT will remove the contracting company from the “black list”, and Gusev in return recognizes all claims against himself and henceforth agrees not to write negative materials about the company.

After the conclusion of the agreement, Gusev goes to court with Kunakbaev and writes, under the dictation of the AMT employee, a statement addressed to the judge that the claim is fully recognized.

On the same day, Gusev writes another statement to the court, in which he indicates that his first statement was written under duress and that it should not be taken into account.

In this fact, Temirtau police opened a criminal case under part 2 of the Article 158 of the Criminal Code of Kazakhstan “Obstruction of the legitimate professional activities of a journalist using official position”.

However, the investigator of the Karaganda Region Police Department, Nurlan Amanzholov, stopped the investigation in this case, allegedly because Kunakbaev had no legally defined crime in his actions.

Then the journalist asked for help at the International Foundation for the Protection of Freedom of Speech “Adil soz”. Under pressure from a public organization, the case was reopened. But, Amanzholov again closed it. I had to complain again to the Regional Prosecutor’s Office. The case was resumed for the third time. And all this has been going on for 10 months.

“If the police believe that I’ll just give up; they’re wrong,” Gusev said. “I will bring this case to court anyway.” I want justice to prevail, and Kunakbaev suffered a deserved punishment. People in uniform told me here: “Aren’t you afraid that Arcelor will buy a judge?” But if a judge is bought, then the police and prosecutors will get a scolding. I will not stop. This is a case of principle. If necessary, I’ll appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.”

Gusev notes that Kunakbaev continues to work.

“This is a high-profile, significant case,” he notes. “On the one hand, there is a large corporation, and on the other, a member of the Union of Kazakh Journalists. I don’t want to exaggerate my importance, but this is a critical and inconvenient situation for the company.”

Gusev also ruled out the possibility of concluding a peace agreement. “The team of this company has high opinion of itself. They will never come to an agreement. I am also, I will not agree. This is a question of principle. I will not accept any money, as well as other offers. I will bring this case to court,” the journalist emphasized.

Gusev also said that he wants to translate into English the lawsuit about Conchita Wurst and send it to various European LGBT organizations.

“I’ve never been so happy for people of non-traditional sexual orientation as now,” Gusev exclaims. “Human rights organizations that protect LGBT rights will receive a 100% option for filing a lawsuit against a multinational corporation, since Paramjit Kalon, in addition to being the CEO of “ArcelorMittal CIS”, also holds the position of Vice-president at “ArcelorMittal”. I think that the LGBT community will be able to rip off millions of dollars from this corporation. After all, this lawsuit, in fact, is real homophobia. And what will happen to the shares of “ArcelorMittal” when it turns out that the Vice-president is a homophobe. It’s hard to predict.”

It should be noted that “ArcelorMittal” is the largest metallurgical company in the world. It was formed in 2006 by the merger of the Luxembourg company “Arcelor” and the Indian “Mittal Steel”, owned by the Indian businessman Lakshmi Mittal. (In 2008, Lakshmi Mittal, according to Forbes, owned the fourth largest fortune in the world – $45 billion. In 2018, it fell to $18.5 billion.)

“ArcelorMittal” has production facilities in 18 countries on 4 continents, products are sold in 160 countries. In the list of the largest companies in the world Forbes Global 2000 for 2018, “ArcelorMittal” took 152nd place. The annual income of the company in 2018 amounted to $76 billion dollars.