The Dutch Journalism Council — an independent body that hears complaints about compliance with journalistic ethics — has found Vedeneev's complaint unfounded. According to the decision, BNR covered Vedeneev's commercial activities “thoroughly” and included his response “adequately” in the publication.
The complaint was filed on 20 October 2025 and formally submitted on 16 November 2025. BNR responded on 6 February 2026; hearings took place on 20 March 2026 in the presence of the complainant and his interpreter. BNR was represented by editor-in-chief M. Adriani, journalist E. van den Berg and lawyer J. van Weghel.
Dispute over wording
Vedeneev argued that the article was factually inaccurate and misleading, and that his comment had been used selectively. According to him, GNMS B.V. merely resold services in Europe and had no contracts with Telegram, did not install or maintain servers and had no access to data. He also pointed out that the article conflates legally separate entities — the Russian 000GlobalNet, the Antigua-based GNMS Inc. and the Dutch GNMS B.V. — and that since 2024 he has not owned 000GlobalNet. He further objected to the terms “network equipment” and “physical access”, stating that the matter concerned passive components without interception capabilities.
BNR, for its part, insisted that it had acted in accordance with its editorial guidelines: the material was prepared over several months by three investigative journalists, and extensive correspondence was conducted with Vedeneev before and after publication. According to the editorial team, about half of the article consists of a presentation of the complainant's position, and the omission of some of his arguments is explained by the limited length of online texts and the requirement of clarity for the reader.
What the council decided
The council emphasised that it does not conduct its own investigation of the facts and does not assess how legally correct the description of the complainant's structures and their services is. It only examined whether the boundaries of journalistic ethics had been violated.
In the council's assessment, BNR convincingly demonstrated that it had sufficient grounds to write on this topic and to devote attention to Vedeneev. The council deemed the use of the headline permissible, since it finds sufficient justification in the text. Any possible confusion on the reader's part regarding the connection between the mentioned structures and their services cannot, in the council's view, be held against BNR. The council found no grounds to consider the material one-sided or suggestive, and individual omissions do not make the publication unreliable.
“The complaint is therefore unfounded,” the decision states.
The council separately noted that the complainant's response was handled properly. The decision concerns journalistic standards and is not a judicial verdict on Telegram's ties to the FSB.
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