Minister of Infrastructure Volodymyr Omelian has filed a counter-lawsuit against International Airlines of Ukraine (UIA) in a bid to defend his honor and dignity. Omelian announced this at a news briefing, the Interfax Ukraine news agency reports.
"I have prepared a lawsuit to defend my honor and dignity. It has already been filed, and I hope that it will be considered as soon as possible. I believe that those manipulations by UIA are dishonest and have nothing to do with fair competition," Omelian said.
As reported, Omelian announced on 26 July 2017 that UIA had filed three lawsuits. According to him, UIA was asking a court to terminate the agreement between the Ryanair low-cost airline and the Lviv airport, invalidate the March 15 memorandum between the Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure and Ryanair, order submission of a copy of the agreement between Ryanair and the Lviv airport, and order the ministry to pay UAH 20.05 million as compensation for UIA’s losses.
The airline accused Omelian of illegally lobbying for entry of Ryanair into the Ukrainian market. "We see violations of the law by the minister of infrastructure, which has taken the form of signing a memorandum with a foreign commercial airline," UIA’s President Yurii Miroshnikov said.
