The SENSE team successfully completed a court case to protect the business reputation of a large agricultural company. Courts of three instances, including the Supreme Court, confirmed the lawyers’ position and obliged the national media outlet to remove inaccurate information from the journalistic investigation.
The essence of the dispute
A large-scale investigation was published on the YouTube channel of a well-known Ukrainian media outlet, devoted to the problems of grain exports. In the story, Client SENSE was unfoundedly called the “biggest smuggler” and accused of participating in shady schemes. This information was not true and caused significant damage to the company’s reputation on the international market.
Defense strategy: respect for freedom of speech
At SENSE, we believe in the principles of freedom of speech as a fundamental value. Understanding the importance of the work of investigative journalists during war, the Client and I have abandoned standard, aggressive methods of protection – such as demanding blocking of all video, collecting excessive compensation, or forcing a video rebuttal.
Instead, SENSE’s lawyers chose a “surgical” method of restoring rights: the demands concerned exclusively the recognition of the information as unreliable and the removal (cutting) of specific fragments of the video where the Client was mentioned. This allowed preserving the integrity of the journalistic material as a whole, removing only the fake component from it.
Result
Справа пройшла повне коло судового розгляду.
- The Kyiv City Commercial Court upheld SENSE’s claim, found the disseminated information unreliable, and ordered the Defendant to refute it by removing the relevant fragments from the story.
- The Northern Commercial Court of Appeal left this decision unchanged.
- The Supreme Court, consisting of a panel of judges of the Economic Court of Cassation, put an end to the case, confirming the legality of the decisions of the previous instances.
The media has now complied with the court’s decision: references to the Client have been cut from the video, the duration of which has been reduced by a little more than one minute.
Comment from SENSE Managing Partner Dmitry Krugovyi:
“In cases of protecting honor and dignity, we always seek a balance. Our goal is not a war with journalists, but the purity of facts. In this case, we proved that effective protection of business is possible without pressure on freedom of speech. We simply removed the lie, leaving journalists the right to do their work. This is a victory of common sense.”
Reputation is the most valuable asset of a business, and its protection requires a professional legal strategy. If you need advice, contact us via the feedback form, by email at office@sense.ua or by phone at +38 (068) 714 22 55.