Staff on scrapped Russian version of Dazed & Confused claim London Evening Standard owner Alexander Lebedev behaved 'like a bandit'
Alexander Lebedev: bought a controlling stake in the Evening Standard in January. Photograph: Ivan Sekretarev/AP
A group of Russian journalists who are taking legal action against theLondon Evening Standard owner, Alexander Lebedev, for failing to pay their wages, have accused him of "behaving like a bandit" and a "1990s oligarch".
The staff claim that Lebedev "threw them on the street" in March when he froze plans to launch a Russian edition of the British magazine Dazed & Confused. They allege that the billionaire is refusing to pay them their last month's salary, for February – or give them compensation.
Lebedev bought a licence to publish a Russian version of the pioneering style and fashion magazine a year and a half ago. Last October, he hired a small team of journalists and commercial staff to work on the launch of the magazine, and in November even flew the magazine's British co-founder Jefferson Hack to Moscow as a consultant.
In February, however, Lebedev found himself in temporary cash difficulties. He was forced to delay the payment of salaries to Russian journalists on his Novaya Gazeta newspaper, after German authorities grounded his airline Blue Wings for more than a month. He was also forced to scrap plans to launch a Russian Dazed & Confused, which was due to appear in March or September this year.
Today staff who worked on the ill-fated magazine were scathing about Lebedev, who became the first Russian (and ex-KGB spy) to own a UK title when he bought a controlling stake in the Evening Standard in January. They suggest he positions himself as a liberal and a democrat when doing business in Britain, while elsewhere practising employment methods similar to those used espoused by other, less enlightened Russian oligarchs.
"Lebedev can pretend. But in reality he's just a greedy 1990s-style bandit. He's no different from others, who took advantage of the chaos in this country," Julia Savina, the magazine's former commercial director told the Guardian. She added: "This isn't personal. I don't have anything against Lebedev. But the way he is behaving isn't very civilised."
Lebedev denied he had behaved improperly. Regarding claims that he had acted like a bandit, he said: "This is a silly suggestion. If anyone is interested in how I made my money I can send them audited reports from KPMG and Ernst & Young. I had nothing to do with the privatisations of the 1990s. Was I a bandit? I laugh at that."
The businessman said the journalists were spreading "disinformation" about him. "They may themselves be confused," he said. "I think this is a standard situation in Russia. I run into it in 50% of my businesses. That covers dozens of various types, from oil exploration, through to house development, pieces of land, and finance. There are always groups coming up with unsubstantiated business plans."
Savina, however, said the journalists had been treated shabbily. She said she joined the Dazed & Confused team last September after being headhunted. She added that, in March, Derk Sauer – a veteran publisher hired by Lebedev – had told her and nine other staff members that the magazine's launch had been postponed indefinitely. Sauer had promised that Lebedev would pay them their last month's wages, plus two months' compensation.
A week later, Lebedev's lawyer had told them there would be no compensation, she said. He had also asked them to sign forms saying they had agreed to voluntary redundancy. They refused. In a series of emails Lebedev's socialite son Evgeny – who lives in London, where he is dating the actor Joely Richardson – promised to "resolve" the problem. No money, however, arrived. Last week exasperated staff hired a lawyer to sue Lebedev.
"I find it incredible that Lebedev doesn't want to pay us this little money. It isn't that we are begging for it. In this country there are laws, labour laws. You are supposed to be legal. The way Lebedev has chosen to close the project is not legal. He kicked us out without paying our salary debts or any compensation," Savina complained.
According to Savina, 28-year-old Evgeny Lebedev – now the Standard's senior executive director – attended an editorial meeting last October but had little impact, she said. "He was 40 minutes late. He didn't say a word," she recalled. She said that Hack, by contrast – who has a child with the model Kate Moss – seemed "very competent". "We spent two days with him in Moscow. Jefferson felt the dummy was too grey. He wanted to brighten it up."
In a blog posted on his LiveJournal website last Monday, , however, Alexander Lebedev was uncompromising. He accused the Dazed & Confused team of being lazy, ineffective and greedy – arguing that they had awarded themselves excessive salaries, and were trying to live at his expense. "There should be no wealth without labour," he wrote on his popular personal LiveJournal diary, titled Capitalist-Idealist.
Today Lebedev said he had ploughed $120,000 into the project last summer. This resulted in a glossy dummy, featuring a model on the cover holding a black cat. The "zero-issue" edition had a 1,000-copy print run and used material from Jefferson Hack's British titles, including a piece on the Hollywood actor Scarlett Johansson. There was also a feature on the Siberian city of Omsk.
He claims staff had then come up with an inflated business plan costing €4m and it "didn't make sense" to spend that much money.
"We tried with this team. We failed. The dummy has been prepared. The dummy could have been better, but the dummy was done for a very small amount of money. Why spend 30 times more?"
He added: "It [the decision to freeze the project] had nothing to do with the [global economic] crisis. Probably we will launch it with a different team." He said a judge would have to rule on the journalists' claim, which related to different "legal entities" set up to publish the magazine. Asked whether he owed the journalists anything, he said: "I suggest it is the court that should handle that."
Today Savina said she did not think her experience was a cautionary tale for journalists working on the Lebedev-owned Evening Standard, who might be anxious about their jobs. "I don't think they should be too worried. I think Lebedev is prepared to rob Russian journalists while being a good liberal guy to the British ones," she said, before adding: "Say hello to our British colleagues."
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jun/05/alexander-lebedev-russian-journalists
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