Abramovich wins court battle | Bangkok Post: news

Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky lost his long-running legal battle with fellow tycoon Roman Abramovich in London's High Court on Friday and was roundly criticised by the trial judge.

Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky arrives at London's High Court on Friday. Berezovsky, 66, was seeking more than 3 billion pounds($4.75 billion) in damages after accusing the 45-year-old owner of Chelsea football club of blackmail, breach of trust and breach of contract.But Judge Elizabeth Gloster ruled in Abramovich's favour and described Berezovsky as an "unimpressive and inherently unreliable witness" after a trial which started in October last year and ended in January.Berezovsky claimed Abramovich "betrayed" him and "intimidated" him into selling shares in the Russian oil company Sibneft for a "mere 1.3 billion dollars". Abramovich firmly denied the allegations.The judge said the case boiled down to "whether to believe Berezovsky or Abramovich".Because the claims "depended so very heavily on the oral evidence of Mr Berezovsky, the court needed to have a high degree of confidence in the quality of his evidence." she said.The judge added: "That meant confidence not only in his ability to recollect things accurately, but also in his objectivity and truthfulness as a witness."In a lengthy analysis, she added: "On my analysis of the entirety of the evidence, I found Mr Berezovsky an unimpressive, and inherently unreliable, witness, who regarded truth as a transitory, flexible concept, which could be moulded to suit his current purposes."She said that "on occasions he tried to avoid answering questions by making long and irrelevant speeches, or by professing to have forgotten facts which he...