Health resort loses appeal to Rivne 1 TV who reported on their Russian ownership

The North-Western Commercial Court of Appeal dismissed the complaint filed by the health resort "Chervona Kalyna", which demanded that the TV channel "Rivne 1" retract some statements in the journalistic investigation about the health resort's new owner, the Russian businessman Yaroslav Zhdan, and a money laundering scheme involving the venue.

The judgement was passed on April 2, 2024.

In January 2024, the Rivne Oblast Commercial Court declined "Chervona Kalyna's" defamation lawsuit against the TV channel "Rivne 1". The first instance court ruled that the health resort failed to prove that the facts laid out in the journalistic investigation were false or the reported information's harm to the resort's reputation.

According to "Chervonaya Kalyna", first instance court's judgement was "unlawful and arbitrary". The appeal also included a request to re-examine the case and declare the information reported by the TV channel in their investigation as unreliable and defamatory to the Mykola Syvyi Health Resort "Chervona Kalyna". Furthermore, the resort demanded that "Rivne 1" retract the information and pay all the court expemses.

The health resort's lawsuit

"Chervona Kalyna" sued "Rivne 1" over their report "Is the pearl of the Rivne oblast really run by Russians and used to siphon millions?" The health resort wanted a retraction of many quotes by the investigator Illya Tomashevsky and other people featured in the report.

The investigation is based on documents obtained from sources and testimonies by dismissed employees of the resort. The article reports that after the previous CEO of the resort, Yaroslav Syvy, was murdered in 2022, the new acting manager started buying shares of the enterprise and looking for an investor. The new investor and owner of 92% of the resort's shares was the "Areji Yu" LLC, which belongs to the Cyprus company "Frowlaria Holdings LTD".

"And the actual owner (of the Cyprus company. – Ed.) is the Russian citizen Yaroslav Zhdan, who, according to the Russian media, has been featured in several high-profile scandals over dubious withdrawals of huge sums of money from the companies he runs," the report says. In their appeal, the health resort claimed this to be untrue.

The appeal court's judgement

The North-Western Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal by "Chervona Kalyna" and upheld the ruling of the first instance court. According to the judges, the resort failed to provide sufficient evidence that the TV channel published misleading information that harms the sanatorium's image.

However, the court of appeal reduced the legal expenses aid for "Rivne 1" from over ten thousand to eight thousand hryvnias.