LONDON (Reuters) - Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has sued Forbes magazine
for libel in a British court, alleging its valuation of his wealth at
$20 billion was short of the mark by $9.6 billion, Britain's Guardian
newspaper reported on Friday.
The prince, a grandson of Saudi Arabia's founder and nephew of King
Abdullah, had attacked the U.S. magazine's ranking of world billionaires
as flawed and biased against Middle Eastern businesses after he was
ranked number 26 in this year's list.
An official at the High Court in London confirmed that Prince Alwaleed
had filed a defamation suit against Forbes, its editor Randall Lane,
and two of its journalists on April 30. Details of the claim were not
immediately available.
Through his Kingdom Holding Company, Prince Alwaleed owns large stakes in Citigroup, News Corp and Apple Inc,
among other companies. He is also owner or part-owner of luxury hotels
including the Plaza in New York, the Savoy in London and the George V in
Paris.
This year's Forbes World Billionaires list was published on March 4, and the following day Kingdom Holding
said the valuation process used "incorrect data" and "seemed designed
to disadvantage Middle Eastern investors and institutions".
The public spat attracted a lot of comment, but Forbes stuck by its
estimate of Prince Alwaleed's wealth and published an in-depth article
in its March 25 issue entitled "Prince Alwaleed and the curious case of
Kingdom Holding stock".
The article gave details about how Forbes had arrived at the figure
of $20 billion and criticized what it described as a lack of
transparency by Kingdom Holding in detailing its assets.
The article also described Prince Alwaleed's marble-filled, 420-room
Riyadh palace, his private Boeing 747 equipped with a throne, and his
120-acre resort on the edge of the Saudi capital with five homes, five
artificial lakes and a mini-Grand Canyon.
The High Court official in London said the two journalists named in
the defamation claim were Kerry Dolan, the author of the article, and
Francine McKenna, who was credited with additional reporting.
No date has been set for a court hearing in the case, which is in its very early stages, the official said.
The law firm Kobre & Kim, which the Guardian said was acting for
Prince Alwaleed in the suit, declined to comment. New York-based Forbes
could not immediately be reached for comment.
The Guardian article quoted the magazine as saying: "We're very
surprised at claims that Prince Alwaleed has decided to sue Forbes,
particularly if he has done so in the United Kingdom, a jurisdiction
that has nothing whatsoever to do with our recent story which raised
questions about his claims about his wealth."
Media lawyer Jonathan Coad, of the London firm Lewis Silkin, said London
was seen as a more attractive place than New York to bring defamation
suits because U.S. libel law made higher requirements of claimants.
"In the U.S., a high-profile claimant has to prove firstly that the
article was untrue and secondly that the publisher knew that the article
was untrue, which is what we call malice. Those are two hurdles that a
UK libel action does not present," said Coad, who is not involved in the
Prince Alwaleed case.
Under British libel law, a claimant has only to prove that a
publication was defamatory. Then the burden of proof passes to the
defendant, who has several possible defenses, including that the
publication was true.
(Reporting by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Pravin Char)
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