Regarding disinformation about UACRR!
Dear Authors, Right holders, Partners and Friends of the Agency!
Recently an “Intellectual property” magazine published online defamatory publications, related to the activity of the Agency.
To protect ourselves from the future innuendoes addressed by Ms. Abdulina, editor in chief of the foregoing magazine and, at the same time, author who feeds society with deceptive material, we have to state the following.
First and foremost, the Agency of Copyright and Related Rights performs its activity openly, transparently and publicly and never evades from any inspections initiated by State Intellectual Property Service of Ukraine or by some other authorities. Thus, in 2013 we had 7 inspections, 2 of them were performed by State Intellectual Property Service of Ukraine (herein – SIPS), 1 by State Financial Inspection, 1 complex, so called “Presidential” inspection involving representatives of different ministries, regulatory and law-enforcement authorities, 3 by different law-enforcement authorities (including General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine); in 2014 – 4 inspections (by authorities of MIA, SSU, General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine and Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine); without taking into account numerous requests from all kinds of regulatory authorities (including SIPS).
CAN ANY OF NOW EXISTING COLLECTIVE MANAGEMENT ORGANIZATIONS “BRAG” OF SUCH CONTROL OVER ITS ACTIVITY?
For instance, in the period of February-April of the current year an all out audit of the activity of UACRR was performed by State Intellectual Property Service of Ukraine, in particular, an audit of our financial and economic activity, usage efficiency of Agency’s property and other. The Agency by no means prevented from auditing, but rather fully assisted, providing all the necessary documents, including banking accounts information. The audit resulted into an act that clearly stated: any discrepancy between information-analytical reporting and accountancy documents provided by the Agency WAS NOT FOUND.
Besides, in April of this year, executing a command of Economic Development and Trade, within the framework of the SIPS audit and all of entities and organizations under its control, our Agency also went through such audit and, upon demand of audit commission, provided statements of all banking accounts of UACRR, in particular: account numbers, of which banks, purposes, account opening and closing dates and other documents required by auditors.
Altogether for the current year it was a THIRD audit of the Agency, initiated by SIPS and Ministry of Economics. Despite this the rest SEVENTEEN collective management organizations operating in Ukraine did not have ANY for the given period.
What caused such a heighten interest to our organization is anyone’s guess…
Secondly, on 2nd of September 2015 at about 12.00 without any written or at least oral notice, six persons came to the office of UACRR – another audit commission, – with an order for an additional audit “caused by information discrepancy between foregoing accounting statements (statements of Agency’s accounts in banking institutions in 2014 – edit.) and factual opened/closed banking accounts…”. Management of the Agency put into writing its objections against composition of the commission and performance of audit in such composition and addressed them to the Chairman of SIPS Ms. Zharinova and Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine Mr. Abromavychus. One of the reasons was that one of the commission members, which has to perform another unscheduled audit of the Agency, according to an order of SIPS №123-Н of 01.09.15 was Mykola Sosnovskyi – a director of All-Ukrainian Non-governmental organization “All-Ukrainian Author’s League”, which is in fact a competing collective management organization. Therefore we consider the inclusion of M. Sosnovskogo to the commission as an attempt of raider attack of UACRR – the only internationally recognized collective management organization and member of International Confederation of Authors and Composers Societies (CISAC), – taking into consideration that this person, from the moment of his dismissal from the Agency, where he used to work as a system administrator, constantly attempts to become a director of UACRR or discredit our Agency by any means.
Despite the written motivated refusal of temporarily acting General Director of the Agency Myagkohod Y., the very next day (3rd of September) the commission in the same composition headed by M. Sosnovskyi (we say “headed” because he behaved as he was the one to be in charge of the audit!) came to the Agency’s office and demanded our documents, prevented our employees from leaving the office, one person distinguished himself by super insolent behavior, threats and hysterical cries followed by “phone calls to the television” and “you’ll see what we are going to do!” … Later a “backup” came to the office: lawyer from Intelzakhust, some other counsels, personage in a jumpsuit refusing to introduce himself and even the Chairman of the Public Council under SIPS Dmytro Guziy…
Large-scale event…
Thirdly, regarding to the statements that General Director of UACRR Oksana Matvieieva “immediately found herself to be in the hospital”, we personally inform Ms. Abdulina (because the management of SIPS already had this information) that General Director O. Matvieieva has been spending over a week in the hospital due to the aggravation of a chronic disease, caused by stress, which not only director but all the Agency’s staff has been suffering from lately. All the events concerning the work of our Agency that recently have taken place we consider as an attempt of blackmail aimed to implement mercenary motives of certain people.
In conclusion we would like to inform the following.
Owing to the cautious actions of First Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine Yuliya Kovaliv, who managed to “sit both parties at the negotiation table” and to deal with the conflict, respective changes were made to an order of SIPS №123-Н of 01.09.15 which allowed to partly change the composition of the commission auditing UACRR. Unauthorized persons were excluded from the commission team. At 9.30, 4th of September, Friday the commission took up its audit functions without any obstacles from the part of the Agency’s employees. Yet again…
PS. Referring to the Internet recourse “Intellectual property”, after studying articles for the past few months, it seems that the purpose of the magazine is not “to cover the problems of intellectual property in Ukraine and all over the world’, as their web site says, but exclusively for dark PR of UACRR, as there are almost no other articles apart from those dedicated to our Agency and its management. It is hardly surprising taking into account that one of the editorial board members is the foregoing Mykola Sosnovskyi…