Sanctions and political pressure on Ukrainian judges: Parimatch will defend interests in European courts

On February 6, 2024, the Supreme Court, as part of a panel of judges of  the Commercial Cassation Court issued an unlawful decision in favor of the media holding RBC (abbreviation from “RosBusinessConsulting”) in the defamation case against the owners of rights to Parimatch trademarks and software. The plaintiff defended its interests about the publication of false information about Parimatch on the media platform in 2022.

The company considers the court’s decision unjustified,

• the court went beyond the legal requirements – in fact, it did not consider the issue of defamation in the RBC publication and did not investigate the reliability of the contested information in the publication;

• the court did not take into account that during the entire time of the court case, RBC did not provide any evidence regarding the authenticity of the statements in the article;

• the Ukrainian court assumed authority and independently interpreted the legislation of other countries (in particular, the russian federation and Cyprus). At the same time, the panel of judges ignored the conclusions of foreign legal experts, which were provided by Parimatch’s lawyers;

• arguments regarding the registration of trademarks in the russian federation, or the use of logos by third parties cannot indicate the conduct of business in the aggressor country. Unfortunately, these facts were ignored by the court when making the decision

The company considers the decision made by the cassation instance to be openly biased and political, and contrary to Ukrainian legislation and common sense. The position of the judicial body confirms the lack of independence of the Ukrainian judiciary and the demonstrably political nature of its decisions.

Currently, the full text of the decision is officially unavailable. After its publication, we will be able to comment on it in more detail.

The decision will be studied in detail by lawyers, based on this analysis we will determine our further actions to protect the rights and reputation of the company – in international courts.

The company has already provided a public, clear and comprehensive answer on the website https://justice4business.com regarding all ties with the russian federation in the past, the ownership structure and franchise agreements for the presence of the brand in the russian federation until March 2022 and the complete withdrawal from the market.

We emphasize once again the Ukrainian origin of the brand and the company and the absence of any ties to the russian federation.