The court partially granted the lawsuit against the newspaper "My City" by only 1%

In May 2023, Uralsk Court No. 2 received a lawsuit to protect the honor, dignity, and business reputation of Zhandos Samatov, Deputy General Director of Batys Su Arnasy JSC, against the owner of the newspaper "My City" - LLP "Media Start 2012". 

Zhandos Samatov asked the court to declare the information disseminated in the article by Kristina Kobina titled “The director of Batys Su Arnasy LLP was accused of embezzling money, and his deputy of drunkenness” (“My City”, 10/6/2022), as unreliable. He also requested the defendant to publish a refutation with an apology, as well as compensate for the moral damages inflicted in the amount of 10 million tenge. 

On July 28, the court announced its decision in the case. Judge Batyrgaliyeva partially granted the claim. As compensation for non-pecuniary damage, the newspaper will have to pay Samatov only 1% of the declared amount - 100,000 tenge. 
Legal assistance to the publication was provided by the lawyer "Adil Soz" Sergey Utkin. Overall, he was content with the court's decision, but he disagrees with the assessment that the headline contains false information. 

“I am content with the court's decision regarding the dismissal of the claim. I appreciate how the judge explained to Samatov that if the word 'supposedly' is used before the word 'drunk', then such a phrase cannot be deemed untrue. Similarly, if the word 'drunk' is placed in quotation marks in the article, it changes the meaning. In other words, the newspaper never definitively labeled the plaintiff as drunk, so there should be no offense taken from the newspaper. As for the headline, it indicates that the water utility workers accused the deputy director of drunkenness, and this is an established fact. The plaintiff himself mentioned in the pre-trial claim that the on-duty dispatcher,

Doronina, spread speculation and slander about him, alleging that he was drunk. However, the court concluded that the phrases "Deputy director was accused of drunkenness" and "Deputy director was drunk" carry the same meaning. 

When we framed questions for the specialist philologist, we particularly emphasized this nuance. The specialist's conclusion highlighted the meaning conveyed in the article's title. We read the conclusion and remarked: however, the court might interpret it differently. At which point, the specialist expressed frustration: an alternative interpretation here is simply implausible. It turned out it was possible!” he stated. 
The publication does not concur with the court's decision to partially grant the claim and intends to appeal against it.