Court orders Mykolaiv Thermal Power Plant to provide NikVesti with data on salaries of its management

The state-owned company «Mykolaiv Combined Heat and Power Plant» (CHP) has lost a lawsuit against online media journalist NikVesti in a case over the provision of public information on the amount of salaries and bonuses paid to its management team in 2023.

On 17 February, the Mykolaiv District Administrative Court granted in full the claim filed by journalist NikVesti against the Mykolaiv CHP.

More than a year ago, on 24 January 2024, the editor-in-chief of the publication, Kateryna Sereda, sent an information request to the company, asking for information on the salaries and bonuses received in 2023 by the management of Mykolaiv CHP, namely: Chairman of the Board Dmytro Myroshnychenko, Technical Director and Chief Engineer Serhii Rykov, CFO Vira Zverzhynska, Commercial Director Anton Pavlov, Director for Administrative and Economic Activities Viktoriia Pereverzieva, Director for Procurement, Transport and Logistics Oleksandr Naumenko, and others. A separate item of the request was information on the amounts of remuneration, reimbursement of expenses and additional benefits provided to members of the Supervisory Board of the Private Joint Stock Company «Mykolaiv Heat and Power Plant».

However, there was no response from the state-owned company. Only three months later, they responded with a letter in which they justified their position by stating that this was confidential information about the company's employees that could not be disclosed to the public because they were not a public authority. In May 2024, the publication filed a lawsuit to oblige CHP to publish the salary data.

In its ruling, the court noted that 100% of the shares in «Mykolaiv CHP» belong to NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine, and therefore the CHP is the manager of public information on the structure, principles of formation and amount of remuneration of the director, deputy director, person who permanently or temporarily holds the position of a member of the executive body or is a member of the supervisory board and is obliged to provide such information upon request.

«The answer was not provided within the specified period, nor was a notice of extension of the period for providing information provided, given the court's finding, the Defendant committed unlawful inaction, which is manifested in the failure to respond to the request», the court said in its decision.

At the same time, Order №273 of 19.07.23, to which CHPP refers, is groundless and does not contain confidential or commercial information about salaries and bonuses for the company's management, the court said.

«The court found that the Defendant had failed to act unlawfully and that there were no obstacles to responding to the request for public information, so the proper way to protect the Plaintiff's violated rights would be to declare the inaction of the information manager, Private Joint Stock Company «Mykolaiv Heat and Power Plant», which consists in failing to provide Kateryna Sereda with a response to a request for public information dated 24 January 2024», unlawful, the court said in its decision.

As a result, the court ordered PJSC «Mykolaiv Heat and Power Plant» to respond to the information request NikVesti and provide data on the salaries of the company's management and supervisory board members.

It should be noted that the plaintiff's interests were represented in court by Oksana Maksymeniuk, a lawyer and head of the legal department at the Institute for Regional Press Development.

The court's decision has not yet entered into force, and the case will be considered by the Court of Appeal.

As a reminder, Mykolaiv police closed the criminal case initiated after the journalists were denied access to the city council building.