Kyiv's appeal court has refused to overturn a court ruling obliging Ukraine's national state-run television company (NTKU) to pay Euronews € 10 million. NTKU said it would file further appeals, according to the Public Broadcasting website.
“On May 19 Kyiv’s appeal court examined the claims and counter claims filed by Euronews and NTKU, respectively. They regarded license payments from February 2013 to February 2015, as well as NTKU’s claim that license agreement violated law. In addition, NTKU incurred large losses as a result of the deal,” says the post on the Public Broadcasting website.
The court did not agree with NTKU and ordered it to pay Euronews EUR 10 million in damages. That is double NTKU’s previous annual budget, or one half of the amount budgeted this year to fund the entire system of state television broadcasting
The posting says if the court order is enforced NKTU may go bankrupt.
“During 2013 to 2014 NTKU management did not take any action to annul the contract, although they received written instructions to do so. Moreover, state supervisory agencies ignored the fact that NKTU managers did not have right to sign the [licensing] agreement in the first place, because it was not first vetted by independent legal experts, as required by law. The ruling of the Kyiv appeals court could seriously impair NTKU’s ability to meet its financial requirements and comes before Ukraine hosts the song contest Eurovision 2017, an event which will require NTKU to be credit worthy,” the post says.
NKTU signed a licensing agreement with Euronews in October 2010. New leadership at the State Committee in Television and Radio-Broadcasting of Ukraine and NKTU in 2014 sought to sever ties with Eurovision because they were unprofitable for the Ukrainian side, which could not exercise control over the content broadcast by the Ukrainian version of Euronews.
