On June 2, 2026, the Odessa Court of Appeal overturned the decision of the court of first instance, which ordered Simcord to recognize as unreliable the statement of Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation Oleksandr Bornyakov that the company was a «pyramid». We tell you how the case developed.
On June 2, 2026, the Odessa Court of Appeal overturned the decision of the court of first instance, which ordered Simcord to recognize as unreliable the statement of Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation Oleksandr Bornyakov that the company was a «pyramid». We tell you how the case developed.
In 2022, Simcord LLC filed a lawsuit against Bornyakov after heleft the same comment on Facebook twice — under posts by AIN.UA and a dev.ua journalist announcing news about searches at the Kharkiv IT company Simcord (by that time it had moved to Mukachevo). The comment read: «This is not an IT company. This is a pyramid scheme.»
Simcord insisted that this phrase was an untrue statement of fact that was damaging to the company’s business reputation, and demanded that Bornyakov refute it by posting a post on his page within a year acknowledging the spread of false information, and also prohibit him from spreading similar statements in the future.
Initially, on June 29, 2023, the Primorsky District Court of Odessasatisfied Simcord’s claim in full, recognizing Bornyakov’s statement as a statement of fact, not an evaluative judgment.
The defense insisted that the comment was a value judgment formed based on an analysis of open sources about the activities of Simcord and the Bitbon project associated with the company — in particular, publications about the questionable reviews of the project, a post by the Anti-Corruption Bloc of ATO participants, and media material about the company’s reputation and criminal proceedings under the article on fraud, opened against Simcord back in July 2021.
According to the defense, the concept of «financial pyramid» is not legally defined, so it is impossible to verify such a statement for its truthfulness in principle — and therefore, it is not a fact, but a subjective opinion protected by Article 34 of the Constitution of Ukraine and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The Court of Appeal agreed with the defense’s arguments and overturned the first-instance decision. The ruling stated that Bornyakov’s comment was an evaluative judgment, not a statement of fact: it reflected a subjective perception of information formed on the basis of open sources, and could not be verified for accuracy in the same way as a fact. The court also emphasized that the statement did not contain any signs of defamation and was not expressed in a rude or humiliating manner.
Separately, the court noted that Simcord had the opportunity to exercise its right of reply on the same social networks under the same publications, but did not do so.
The resolution entered into force on the date of its adoption; it can be appealed in cassation to the Supreme Court within 30 days from the date of the full text of the decision.
