An airline business part owned by Alexander Lebedev has won a court victory against two subsidiaries of the multinational corporation General Electric (GE).
A London high court judge decided that GE's two divisions - PK AirFinance and GECAS - should pay $10.17m (£7.03m) in damages plus interest and costs to Lebedev's Swiss-based business, Alpstream.
Mr Justice Burton ruled that the GE companies had conspired to take ownership of seven Alpstream planes "on the cheap" and was critical of some of their witnesses.
Lebedev and his son, Evgeny, are the owners of the Independent titles and the London Evening Standard, plus the Moscow-based Novaya Gazeta.
Lebedev said after the case: "GE tried to crush us by the use of their financial firepower in the face of the facts, and failed.
"All of our efforts to reach an out of court settlement were rebuffed. Our resolve to press on in spite of the financial burden has now been vindicated by the court's ruling."
