The Higher Court in Belgrade dismissed the defamation lawsuit brought by the then minister in the Serbian Government Nenad Popović against KRIK media outlet and its editor in chief. The plaintiff raised the claim on the basis of two articles published online which dealt with his controversial business in relation to offshore havens. The articles were based mainly on documents obtained from the Paradise Papers, an international journalistic project, in which an offshore law agency described the plaintiff’s business as risky. The articles also mentioned that the minister was under investigation by the prosecutor’s office and the Serbian Agency for Combating Corruption since he failed to declare the entirety of his assets in the Agency’s registries. The court ruled that the defendants acted in accordance with journalistic duties. First, the defendants tried to contact the plaintiff before the publication of the articles but he failed to respond. Secondly, they based their stories on official documents and on the Paradise Papers. Further on, the court affirmed that journalists are not obliged to disseminate information literally as stated in documents in their possession and that they enjoy the right to interpret such documents. Finally, the court considered that the articles contributed to a debate of public interest and that the plaintiff was a public figure, meaning that the threshold of tolerance to speech regarding his affairs was high.