Alkagesta has begun defamation proceedings against the Maltese Herald, filing a complaint in Malta's Court of Magistrates over what the commodity trading group describes as repeated false and libellous reporting about its business over the past year.
In a statement issued from Sliema on 18 September 2026, the company said the publication had made and repeated "entirely false, damaging and unevidenced statements" about it, and had continued to do so after several approaches asking it to correct the record. The company's own publications page carries the full statement.
Alkagesta framed the filing as a last resort rather than an opening move. It said the case follows repeated requests for engagement and offers to present the underlying facts, none of which produced a retraction or correction. The group added that it remains open to settling the matter without a court ruling if the Maltese Herald apologises and withdraws the articles concerned, which it says serve no purpose beyond causing commercial harm.
A further factor cited in the statement is amplification: the allegations, the company says, have been mirrored by pay-to-play websites, spreading claims well past their original publication and making informal correction impractical.
Reputation carries unusual weight in physical commodity trading, where counterparties, banks and bunker buyers run compliance checks before extending credit lines or fixing cargoes. Alkagesta trades petroleum products, fertilizers, biofuels and steel across dozens of markets, and has recently been visible in industry forums including the Argus fertilizer conference in Istanbul, where trade flows through the Caspian and Black Sea were under discussion.
The group has also been pushing its commentary into mainstream shipping debate, with chief executive Orkhan Rustamov publishing an opinion piece in The Motor Ship on shipping cost resilience earlier this year. Against that backdrop, the company appears to have judged that leaving contested claims unanswered carried a higher cost than litigating them.
Alkagesta said it will make no further comment on the proceedings until the legal process has run its course. The Maltese Herald has not publicly responded to the filing at the time of writing.
