|By TAP Staff|Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud secured a London court ruling in his favour in a defamatory suit against Forbes for an article carried by the magazine on him in April 2013.
Alwaleed maintained that Forbes defamed him by falsely accusing him of defaulting on important contractual obligations, dishonestly manipulating the share price of Kingdom Holding Company, and firing KHC’s auditor because it raised concerns that KHC’s value was over-estimated. Alwaleed also noted that the court has found that the Forbes’ articles did not impact KHC.
The lawsuit will now move forward to hold Forbes accountable for their inaccurate reporting and withdraw the allegations.
In March of 2013, Alwaleed and Kingdom Holding Company announced they were severing ties with the Forbes Billionaires List, would no longer assist the Forbes wealth estimation team and asked to be removed from the annual list.
The prince said the action was taken after several years of frustration in working with the Forbes team and the belief that the Forbes team was using questionable methodology and consistently publishing estimates of his wealth that the KHC team told them was incorrect.
In April 2013, Forbes published a series of articles that according to Alwaleed not only contained inaccurate figures based on faulty methodologies, but also contained damaging personal allegations, defamatory remarks about KHC, Saudi financial institutions and the Saudi people. In the spring of 2013, Alwaleed and KHC filed a defamation suit against Forbes to hold the magazine accountable for the defamatory reporting .