Court orders Hromadske to take down the Portnov investigation
The Kyiv Court of Appeal upheld the ruling by the Pechersk District Court and ordered Hromadske to take down the investigation into Andriy Portnov, the former deputy head of Viktor Yanukovych's administration. The team says they disagree with the verdict and will appeal to the Supreme Court.
The team recalled that in August, the Pechersk District Court judge Oleksiy Sokolov satisfied all of Portnov’s claims against Hromadske.
As Suspilne remarks, Hromadske has audio recordings of phone conversations between Portnov and former Ukrainian officials. They suggest that Portnov and his interlocutors were somehow involved in the processes related to the occupation of Crimea by Russia.
The court ordered the media outlet to retract information reported in the investigation “How they robbed us of Crimea: exclusive records” and to take down the content from YouTube, the website, and social media. The editorial team was also orderd to pay over UAH 170,000 for Portnov's legal assistance and over UAH 14,000 in court fees.
Hromadske filed an appeal against the ruling, which was considered on December 9, 2024. At the hearing, the team's representative argued that the disputed quotes from the investigation are the subjective opinion of the authors and not factual data that can be declared false.
In turn, Portnov’s lawyer Karina Mikityan called the Pechersk District Court’s ruling “reasonable and lawful,” claiming that there was no evidence to prove illegal actions on Portnov's part and remarking that no case had been opened against him.
The Kyiv Court of Appeal satisfied Hromadske’s complaint in part, reducing the sum of legal assistance compensation from UAH 170,000 to UAH 56,000. However, the court ordered the editorial office to pay an extra UAH 15,000 for the services of Portnov’s lawyer in the appeal.
The other part of the Pechersk Court’s ruling was left unchanged: Hromadske must still retract the information from the investigation and take it down.
“I did not claim that Portnov is a collaborator, traitor, or a pro-Russian figure, I was just posing a question: can he be called that? My main purpose was to highlight the absurdity of the ruling by the Pechersk District Court, which sided with Portnov in the case against the Anti-Corruption Action Center and banned the use of these words against him,” responded Yaroslava Volvach, the author of the investigation.
According to the journalist, Portnov’s lawyer “intentionally omitted” the words “probably” and “as our data suggests” from the disputed quotes from the investigation. As if to frame a subjective opinion as a statement of fact.
“As for the key issue that Portnov avoids in his lawsuit, these are the records that suggest his possible involvement in the processes related to the occupation of Crimea, and this issue should be checked by the law enforcement,” the investigator said.
Hromadske is preparing a cassation appeal to the Supreme Court.
In September 2024, the Kyiv Court of Appeal dismissed the complaint filed by Natalia Sedletska, the director of Radio Liberty's Kyiv bureau and of the "Skhemy" project, in the defamation lawsuit by Andriy Portnov, an ex-deputy and former Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration. The Court upheld the ruling by the Pechersk District Court, who judged in Portnov's favor.
Portnov sued Sedletska and multiple other media outlets in the fall of 2020 over her Facebook post dated August 17, 2020 – the day a "Skhemy" corporate car was set on fire. In the post, Sedletska mentioned Portnov's negative attitude towards the team, namely the fact that he had leaked the personal data of their driver, including his address and the license plates of the car that was subsequently set on fire, and on the eve of the arson, he publicly threatened to "teach a lesson" to the investigative journalism project.
Also in September 2024, the Pechersk District Court of Kyiv ruled in favor of Andriy Portnov, who sued the "Chesno" Movement, demanding his profile be removed from the register of high traitors on the Movement's website.
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