The court refused the Samara billionaire Vyacheslav Sheyanov to satisfy the lawsuit against the network edition “Version”
Vyacheslav Sheyanov took legal action against the Versiya newspaper in August 2021 to defend his business reputation. He wanted to disprove the information from the April Fool’s Laundry article.
On January 11, 2022, the Moscow Arbitration Court dismissed the claim after considering the case. There may be an appeal. Nonetheless, the journalists used information from public sources, and their analysis led to subjective conclusions that Mr. Sheyanov disagreed with.
Without getting into the details leading to the dispute, which are in the mentioned article, we will share some trial details. We also want to highlight the objective approach to facts of the all-Russian newspaper of independent journalistic investigations “Our Version” and the online publication “Version”, as described on its website.
Let’s begin with the statement made to the correspondent of Nasha Versiya by the head of the legal department of the Versiya Publishing House, Kirill Shtykhno: “The current dispute is rather unusual for us. As part of a pre-trial settlement, we made concessions to Vyacheslav Vladimirovich. However, this was not sufficient for Mr. Sheyanov, who chose to continue the dispute in court. He estimated moral damage at several million rubles and demanded a refutation of the information. It’s premature to talk about the final decision. Nonetheless, we were able to draw the court’s attention to the high standards of conveying information to readers and compliance with the law by the editors of the Versiya online publication. If our author expresses his opinion, allowed by the Law of the Russian Federation “On Mass Media”, and develops his idea about the activities of a certain person, he does so specifically, clearly and definitively. The controversial article about the activities of Vyacheslav Vladimirovich was in line with the publication’s editorial policy. I believe we will continue to defend our interests successfully.”
According to the lawyer, it becomes clear that the parties attempted to reach an agreement before the trial, and the editors accommodated Vyacheslav Sheyanov by removing some phrases from the article that he disliked. However, Sheyanov seemingly wanted to completely erase information about his activities from the Internet, so he chose to sue.
In his lawsuit, Sheyanov named Versiya LLC and the author of the article, Yegor Dymov, as defendants. However, it was impossible to subpoena the author, as the article was prepared by the editorial team, and “Egor Dymov” is a pseudonym. As per the charter, the editorial office is not a legal entity, and Versiya LLC, as the founder of the media, is responsible for publishing the article, as highlighted in court.
Mr. Sheyanov's negative conclusions about the article submitted to the court are based on the opinion of a specialist linguist. However, there is doubt about the objectivity of the assessment because the linguist may have a bias towards the Plaintiff. This raises the question of whether the linguist's findings may be influenced by the Plaintiff who commissioned the study.
Let's consider a specific point of contention. The statement of claim accuses Sheyanov of being part of a 'laundry cartel,' which is deemed discrediting and not in line with reality. The allegation suggests that Sheyanov engaged in unfair competition, which is a punishable offense under Article 178 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
Firstly, it can be confirmed that Vyacheslav Sheyanov is the sole founder of RGC LLC according to the Federal Tax Service website. Secondly, the information about linen rental is taken from the RGC LLC website and is not necessarily discrediting. The author does not force the reader to unquestionably believe this information, as indicated by the phrase 'if you believe' at the beginning of the paragraph.
Regarding the collusion allegations, the information about involvement in a cartel and the assistance of a partner are presented as the author's personal opinions and assumptions. This distinction is important from a legal standpoint since it is possible to challenge a statement but not an assumption or personal conclusion.
The conclusions were primarily based on a 17-year service contract signed in 2010 between JSC Federal Passenger Company (JSC FPC) and OOO Mekhprachechnaya SvZhD (LLC MP SvZhD), which is fully owned by Vyacheslav Sheyanov. JSC FPC unilaterally terminated the contract in 2019, prompting a legal dispute with MP SvZhD. It was discovered that, in exchange for promised construction of a laundry plant, MP Sverdlovsk Railways received the exclusive right to supply bed linen to JSC FPC at non-competitive prices without participating in tenders.
In the explanations submitted for the court hearing, FPC referred “to the fact that it has good faith and reasonable motives for refusing the service contract, taking into account, in particular, the following:
– non-competitive procedure (without a tender or other competitive procedure), non-market conditions (cost of services) and an extremely long term (17 years) of the service agreement;
– long delays in concluding an investment agreement, in the implementation of the first stage of the investment project, inadequate quality of the design and estimate documentation developed by the plaintiff, failure to fulfill the investment agreement within the time frame stipulated by it, inadequate quality of construction work performed.
As a result, the promised complex was never built, FPC lost its economic interest in continuing legal relations under the service contract, and MP Sverdlovsk Railways countered the accusation of non-market cost of services by saying that “the defendant did not apply to the plaintiff with proposals to reduce the price of services; accordingly, there were no disputes between the plaintiff and the defendant regarding the reduction in the price of services.” It turns out that the final cost, after the delivery of services at inflated prices, was paid from the pockets of Russian Railways passengers, who were completely unaware of how the price for such services is formed. It is possible not to call such relationships a cartel, but it is quite possible to recognize a very clever business that brings additional profits to Sheyanov. However, someone may not like this wording, you never know who and what meaning they will see behind the word “dexterity”. Someone can go to court…
