Ovik Mkrtchyan and Gor Investment Sue Washington Advisers Over Alleged $1bn Campaign

Businessman Ovik Mkrtchyan and his company, Gor Investment, have filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia against corporate intelligence firm Straife, its chief executive Joseph Fleming, and Washington lobbyist Stephen Payne, alleging that former advisers helped damage his reputation, interfere with major business projects in Uzbekistan and cause losses exceeding $1 billion.

The complaint brings claims including defamation, tortious interference, injurious falsehood and civil conspiracy. The defendants will have the opportunity to contest the allegations in court.

In a statement, Mkrtchyan said: “I stand behind the lawsuit and there is nothing I wish to add to the detailed complaint, as those matters will be addressed through the legal process.”

Mkrtchyan added that the events described in the complaint caused “profound and lasting harms” to him and his family, and said an ongoing smear campaign had placed “at least thousands of false publications online.”

According to the complaint, Straife and Fleming advised Mkrtchyan and Gor from 2022 on sensitive strategic and risk matters, receiving more than $100,000 in fees. Payne, described in the complaint as a registered lobbyist who has marketed his Washington connections and experience working in the George W. Bush White House, allegedly worked with Mkrtchyan and his companies from around 2016 and introduced him to Fleming and Straife.

The plaintiffs allege the dispute began after Uzbek businessman Ulugbek Shadmanov and his team demanded that Mkrtchyan use his US relationships to help place two Uzbek nationals, Dmitry Lee and Komil Allamjonov, on the US sanctions list in order to prompt their prosecution in Uzbekistan. Mkrtchyan claims he refused, saying he viewed the demand as unlawful.

The complaint alleges that Shadmanov then began what the plaintiffs describe as a campaign of retaliation. In January 2024, Mkrtchyan and his daughter were detained by officers of Uzbekistan’s State Security Service. His daughter was released, but Mkrtchyan was held for several months. The complaint alleges he was confined in harsh conditions, interrogated, denied medication and pressured to confess to crimes he denied. He was released on April 12, 2024, and the complaint says official records confirm he was cleared of all charges.

After Straife and Fleming’s relationship with Gor ended, the plaintiffs allege they agreed to assist Shadmanov and United Cement Group, or UCG, in interfering with Mkrtchyan’s and Gor’s contracts and business opportunities, and began what the plaintiffs describe as a smear campaign against Mkrtchyan and his partners.

A central allegation concerns an unsigned multi-page document titled “Report on the Nefarious Activities of Uktam Aripov.” The complaint alleges Straife and Fleming prepared the report, which included claims about Aripov, an associate of Mkrtchyan, as well as about Mkrtchyan and his wider network. The plaintiffs allege the report was left unsigned in order to conceal Straife’s involvement in preparing it.

According to the complaint, former US ambassador Stephen Akard, acting through his Indiana law firm, sent the report and a cover letter on August 16, 2024 to Uzbekistan’s president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, and Uzbekistan’s ambassador in Washington, Furqat Sidikov.

The complaint also focuses on Payne. It says that in April 2024, while Mkrtchyan was detained, Payne wrote in support of his release, attesting to his innocence and blaming Shadmanov and UCG for his detention. The plaintiffs allege that Payne later changed his position after being approached by Fleming.

According to the complaint, Payne acted at Fleming’s and UCG’s direction when he sent an August 23, 2024 letter to President Mirziyoyev and Ambassador Sidikov retracting his earlier support. The letter, the complaint says, set out allegations against Mkrtchyan that included references to purported links to Russian organised crime, extortion and unethical conduct. Mkrtchyan denies those allegations, which the complaint describes as false.

The plaintiffs allege that Payne’s reversal was, in their characterisation, connected to subsequent lobbying and consulting arrangements involving an entity the complaint identifies as Team Eagle Consulting, Payne’s operation.

Mkrtchyan and Gor claim the alleged campaign damaged major projects and relationships involving companies including BASF, CC7 and CITIC. The complaint says CITIC had indicated a willingness to invest more than $1.5 billion in one of the projects.

In an October 29, 2025 retraction letter cited in the complaint, Akard and his firm withdrew the August 2024 letter and report sent to Uzbekistan’s president and ambassador. According to the complaint, Akard said the material had been sent at UCG’s request, that the report had been prepared for UCG by Straife, and that neither he nor his firm had independently verified or could substantiate the allegations.

In a separate legal development, NRCO Engineering S.A., a company owned by Mkrtchyan, recently secured a Final Arbitration Award against Payne and Linden Energy in proceedings administered by the International Centre for Dispute Resolution. NRCO has since petitioned the Southern District of Texas to confirm the award, with a proposed judgment seeking more than $2.19 million including principal, interest, attorneys’ fees and arbitration costs.

The award is notable because the arbitrator also made adverse findings about Payne’s evidence, including that Payne and Logan Somera, who the award says assisted in drafting the letter, did not produce credible evidence supporting assertions in an August 2024 letter Payne sent to the President of Uzbekistan, and that Payne sought to conceal the existence of that letter from Mkrtchyan and Aripov.

The allegations in the D.C. complaint have not yet been proven in court. The defendants will have the opportunity to contest that complaint, challenge the plaintiffs’ account and present their own evidence. The separate NRCO arbitration award has already made findings against Payne and Linden in a different dispute, but it does not determine the defendants’ liability in the D.C. lawsuit.