Court of Appeal orders Mykolaiv TPP to provide data on salaries, bonuses to MykVisti

The Mykolaiv Thermal Power Plant (TPP) lost an appeal regarding the disclosure of public data on the salaries and bonuses paid to the management and members of the company's supervisory board in 2023 to Kateryna Sereda, chief editor of the online news outlet MykVisti.

Kateryna Sereda tells the Institute of Mass Information that on April 14, the Administrative Court of Appeal No. 5 tried the TPP’s appeal and dismissed it.

Over a year ago, on January 24, 2024, Kateryna Sereda submitted an information query to the company, asking for data on the salaries and bonuses received by the management of Mykolaiv Thermal Power Plant in 2023. The letter also included a request for information on rewards, expense compensations, and additional benefits provided to members of the supervisory board of the private joint-stock company Mykolaiv TPP. In May 2024, the media outlet sued the TPP to make them release data on the salaries. On February 17, the Mykolaiv District Administrative Court fully granted MykVisti's claim against Mykolaiv Thermal Power Plant.

Disagreeing with the court’s ruling, the Mykolaiv TPP claimed in their appeal that to the court had incorrectly applied the substantive law and that its conclusions were inconsistent with the details of the case, and requested that the Mykolaiv District Administrative Court ruling be canceled and a new one be passed that would dismiss the plaintiff's claims. The Mykolaiv TPP emphasized that despite 100% of the company’s shares being owned by the state, the company itself belongs to legal entities under private law.

The company also cited its charter, according to which the board's chair must not disclose information that constitutes an official or commercial secret.

However, the appeal court disagreed with the arguments of the Mykolaiv TPP representatives. The panel of judges examined the company’s decrees approving the list of information that is considered confidential and constituting a commercial secret. According to these decrees, commercial secrets include information on the official salaries of employees, the terms of the contracts with the supervisory board chair and members, grades and formulas for determining the amount of remuneration for the company's employees. However, the court believes that the TPP's claim that the requested information is a commercial secret or confidential contradicts the requirements of the Law of Ukraine “On Access to Public Information” and the Law “On Information”, since the company is owned by the state.

The court upheld the ruling by the Mykolaiv District Administrative Court and ordered the Mykolaiv TPP to provide all requested information on the salaries and remuneration of the company’s management and supervisory board. The court’s ruling entered into force on April 14.

Kateryna Sereda's interests were represented in court by Oksana Maksymeniuk, a lawyer and head of the legal department at the Institute for Regional Press Development.

Earlier, the Mykolaiv police closed the previously initiated proceedings on denial of access to the Mykolaiv City Council building to journalists.