Prince Alwaleed settles libel lawsuit against Forbes

Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal has signed a settlement agreement with Forbes Media LLC and two of its writers over the libel suit Alwaleed filed against the U.S.-based publication, according to a statement published on the billionaire’s official website.

Forbes and other defendants included in the case are now comfortable with using the stock price of Kingdom Holding Co. (KHC), in valuing Prince Alwaleed’s wealth, the statement added.

In 2013, Alwaleed had filed a lawsuit against the magazine for “wrongfully” accusing him of manipulating his company’s share price to inflate his net worth in order to raise his ranking on the Forbes list of wealthiest people, according to data previously reported by Argaam.

The magazine had said the prince was worth nearly $20 billion, much less than other estimates of around $25 billion.

Alwaleed, the richest man in the Middle East, insisted that his worth is about $30 billion and accused Forbes of intentional biases and inconsistencies in its valuation process.