The Vinnytsia-based news agency My Vinnychany has received a demand to retract the information reported in their investigation into corruption at the Podilskyi Oncology Centre.
The letter to that effect was sent by Dmytro Kaziuta, a lawyer at Karl Storz Ukraine LLC, reports the Institute of Mass Information’s regional representative, who has seen the letter.
The lawyer claims that the news outlet disregarded the presumption of innocence and harmed the company’s reputation.
The disputed article, titled “Will Podilskyi Oncology Centre’s Perehonchuk go to jail along with his accomplices?”, was released on the My Vinnychany website on 17 March. It looked into an embezzling scheme taking place in the Oncology Centre during the martial law period, reporting that technical requirements for procurement may have been tailored to suit a specific supplier in order to limit the competition. The article also mentioned that Karl Storz Ukraine representatives, namely executive Dmytro Manzhus, could have been involved in equipment cost decisions.
Karl Storz Ukraine LLC denied these allegations and demanded they be retracted, saying that being mentioned in such a context harmed the company’s reputation.
The company stressed that any person must be proven guilty in court and confirmed by a court ruling.
The IMI representative said that the team rejected the demand in their reply. The journalists claimed that they did observe presumption of innocence and used non-definitive phrasings in the article, making no conclusive accusations.
The team added that the information about the company executive’s involvement in equipment cost talks was not the journalist’s personal assumption but an accurate relay of information from an open court ruling: the Vinnytsia Court of Appeal verdict in case No. 127/33238/25, which was officially published in the Unified State Register of Court Rulings.
The journalists said that the alleged embezzlement of large sums from the budget allocated for purchasing equipment for the treatment of cancer patients under martial law is of extremely high public interest. Therefore, in accordance with the Law “On Information”, such data may be reported if the necessity to the public outweighs the possible harm.
My Vinnychany added that they would continue to monitor the progress of the case and report on updates based on official documents and open sources.