Results of the Foundation's work on the Avito case

The Foundation's experience working on the Avito case and important conclusions regarding the fight against international companies that still support Russia and sponsor a bloody war on Ukrainian soil.

PROSUS / AVITO

12/2/20222 min read

For more than 7 months, the Foundation team worked on the PROSUS / AVITO case. Our goal was to stop the publication of advertisements that recruit military personnel and other persons for the purpose of participating in military operations against Ukraine and maintaining the occupation regime in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories.

A lot was done during the work on the case. The main achievement was a collective action in the District Court of Amsterdam against the global high-tech company Prosus N.V. (Netherlands)/Naspers, as a result of which the court recognized as illegal under international law advertisements for the recruitment of military personnel for the war taking place in Ukraine.

In the process of working on the lawsuit, we gained the support of a large number of people, including foreign lawyers, specialists in various fields, activists and volunteers. A petition in support of our lawsuit on change.org has received almost 50,000 signatures.

Given that the District Court of Amsterdam did not fully satisfy our demands, we prepared and submitted an appeal together with our Dutch partners. But just before the start of the appeal proceedings, it became known that Prosus had completed the deal for the sale of Avito. Kismet Capital Group of Russian businessman Ivan Tavrin became the new owners of Avito.ru. As a result of several months of public criticism of the Prosus company for its refusal to leave the Russian market after the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine, the sale of Avito took place at a price three times lower than the pre-war price.

The PROSUS / AVITO case was the first for our Foundation, and we consider its most important achievement to be the recognition at the level of one of the European states of the illegality of military recruitment ads. In addition, having the experience of suing in court in Europe on the grounds of companies' activities in support of Russia, we came to several important conclusions:

The legal process (preferably public) creates serious pressure on foreign owners of Russian services. This is a game according to the civilized rules of their states and Western culture as a whole.
If there are reasons and a legal partner - it is worth suing the companies that sponsor the war.
Judicial systems differ, but in the Netherlands it is possible to initiate a collective lawsuit in a few weeks, supporting it with petition signatures on Change.org.

Currently, the Foundation Ukrainian Victims of War continues its work and prepares documents for several future lawsuits. After all, we believe that international companies' support of a state that terrorizes not only its neighbors, but the entire world, shows contempt for the basic values of a democratic society. And we cannot tolerate it.