Partner of Russian businessman sues Ukrainian journalists
Serhii Semeniuk, business partner and friend of Russian businessman Eduard Apsit, has filed a lawsuit against Ukrainian journalists because of their investigation into both men.
Source: Slidstvo.Info
Details: It is reported that Semeniuk is suing journalists of Slidstvo.Info for investigating cleaning companies associated with Apsit, which for many years have been cleaning Ukrainian strategic facilities, including Ukrzaliznytsia [the Ukrainian railway – ed.], Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s State Tax Service, etc. In the investigation, Semeniuk appears as a business partner of Apsit, who owns companies from the Chysto [Clean] group of companies in Ukraine.
According to colleagues of Slidstvo.Info from Russia’s Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), cleaning companies associated with the Apsit family cleaned the Kremlin Palace.
In addition, journalists found the company from the Chysto group, which worked in occupied Crimea and cleaned the barracks of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Ministry of Defence.
Apsit is also associated with Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Private Military Company.
After the publication of this investigation, Semeniuk filed a lawsuit against the editorial office of Slidstvo.Info and Yanina Kornienko, the author of the material, to protect his honour, dignity and business reputation. At the same time, his lawyers manipulated the procedure of electronic distribution of judges, which automatically determines who will consider the case. To do this, the lawyer filed applications with the court several times and withdrew them until the system chose the judge they favoured, Dina Pokoptseva.
In addition, Semeniuk’s lawyers used an unknown man to be able to file a lawsuit in the "necessary court". This was someone named Vladyslav Hrindak, who simply spread the message about the investigation on social networks. The lawsuit is also directed against him, and since Hrindak is registered in Dnipro’s Sobornyi district, the case ended up in the court of this district. Semeniuk himself is also registered in Dnipro.
It speaks volumes that the plaintiff has no claims against Hrindak. That is, he is not required to pay moral damages. All the while, Semeniuk is looking for UAH 200,000 (US$5,640) from Slidstvo.Info.
According to journalists, the rigged judge "accidentally" decided to consider this case in the order of simplified proceedings. That is, in absentia, only through correspondence with the court, without summoning the parties. Although, as a rule, such cases are considered in the order of general proceedings.
Oksana Maksymeniuk, a media lawyer at the Regional Press Development Institute, explains that simplified proceedings allow you to quickly make a decision on the case, and this can be beneficial to the plaintiff. Another "bonus" is that such cases do not allow for an appeal; that is, there is no opportunity to challenge the court’s decision.
The trial continues.
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