Yesterday Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of Russia’s largest social network, Vkontakte.ru (VK.com), threatened to sue the company’s main shareholder, United Capital Partners (UCP), for defamation.
The claim followed statements made by UCP partner Yuri Kachuro in an interview with “Zuckerberg Will Call,” a publication dedicated to the Russian startup scene. Among other complaints, Kachuro said that Durov “spends most of his time on personal projects and is absent for long periods, which demotivates colleagues.”
Durov replied: “UCP knows that this information is not true. The dissemination of false information discrediting the honor and dignity of another person or damaging his or her reputation is punishable under Article 128.1 on slander.”
Kachuro indicated that his fund had involved “American legal advisers” to check for potential conflicts of interest between Vkontakte and Telegram, an IM project that Durov launched outside of Vkontakte. He also complained about Durov’s lack of response to shareholder questions about the company’s state of affairs, which Durov denied, asserting an “abundance of factual mistakes” in the fund’s accusations.
The investor, who believes that VK’s founder is “pathologically unable to respect agreements and rules of conduct,” made it clear that another may replace Durov as head of Vkontakte.
UCP’s acquisition of a 48% stake in the social network in April came as a surprise to Durov, who had not even been informed of the transaction.
However, the fund’s president Ilya Shcherbovich then expressed hopes that his fund’s involvement would reduce the conflicts between shareholders – which had been the rule rather than the exception before the acquisition – and that Durov would continue managing the company.
