Court authorized “US Agency for Global Media” to represent “Schemes” as third party at trial on Bogdan’s lawsuit

On November 12, the judge of Kyiv's Shevchenko District Court Iryna Frolova upheld a motion filed by the lawyer of PJSC "National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine" (NPTU) and authorized US Agencyfor Global Media to represent “Schemes” as a third party on the defendants' side in a lawsuit filed by the chairman of the Office of the President Andriy Bohdan against "Schemes", as Radio Liberty reported.

The lawyer of “NPTU” Oleksander Pogas argued the need to involve the agency with the fact that, according to the terms of the license agreement, it is the “US Agency for Global Media” that is fully responsible for the content of “Schemes” program.

“According to the terms of the license agreement, it is the “US Agency for Global Media” that is fully responsible for the content of “Schemes: corruption in details” program, negotiates and resolves contentious issues with any person who files a claim with NPTU or lawsuits for the exercise by the latter of its rights, as it is stipulated by this license agreement, or in case of impossibility to resolve the contentious issue through negotiation, it shall be the proper defendant in any legal action that may be instituted based on a claim of any person in connection with the exercise by PJSC “NPTU” of its rights under this license agreement ”, - as the statement of PJSC“ NPTU ” reads.

“US Agency for Global Media” is a US agency that coordinates US broadcasting to other countries in the world. The US Global Media Agency is comprised of five networks: Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa), Radio Free Asia, and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (Radio and TV Martí­)).

We will remind, on October 1 within the preparatory sitting, the judge "Schemes" in which the journalists asked the court to demand the evidences  confirming the facts of flights that Andriy Bogdan had taken to Russia and to Belarus, the information that the journalists got from their sources of information on a confidential basis and made public in the program.

For their part, the journalists found that the refusal of the judge Iryna Frolova to send inquiries to the official bodies of Ukraine and Russia does obstruct the establishment of truth within the legal proceedings and is far-fetched.

As reported by IMI, on August 20, head of the President's Office Andriy Bogdan filed a libel suit against the journalists with “Schemes” (Sedletskaya N., Savchuk M., Yehoshina V.) and the NPTU.

Head of the Office of the President Andriy Bogdan requested  that “Schemes” and NPTU journalists refuted untruthful information, in particular, saying that in 2018 - at the beginning of 2019 he crossed the Belarusian air section of the border for 11 times, and since 2014, he would have crossed the Russian border for six times and at Vnukovo airport in Moscow they would have recorded  three his departures.

The Shevchenkivsky District Court in Kyiv opened the proceedings on this lawsuit.

Phgoto credit: from the website 24tv.ua