Kyiv, 30 June 2017 - The High Specialized Court of Ukraine for Civil and Criminal Cases has rejected MP Pavel Kostenko’s cassation appeal and upheld the decision of the Desniansky District Court and the Kyiv City Court of Appeal which orders MP Kostenko to publicly refute the false allegations that the ICU Group was involved in corrupt deals. The courts of all three instances found that the ICU Group is not related to any of the transactions they are accused of by Pavel Kostenko. In his written cassation appeal to the court, MP Kostenko said he did not intend to implicate ICU Group when he made claims of "operations that deprive state financial institutions of profit", of "[payments] upon corrupt services" and of other illegal operations. The reason for his baseless allegations against the ICU Group in a cassation appeal was his "conflict with the National Bank." The court concluded that the conflict between MP Kostenko and the National Bank was not sufficient grounds for disseminating false information about the ICU Group and therefore ordered MP Kostenko to refute his false accusations in the same way as they were distributed - by publishing a rebuttal on his Facebook page and on the eizvestia.сom website. The decision of the High Specialized Court for Civil and Criminal cases is final, binding for execution and not subject to appeal. Makar Paseniuk, Managing Director at ICU, said: "The ICU Group welcomes the court’s decision and is pleased justice has been done. MP Kostenko’s false accusation has formed the basis of a three-year-long smear campaign intended to discredit the ICU Group and tarnish its reputation. Many media outlets published false, unfounded statements that were based on MP Kostenko’s claims who they trusted given his position as an official of the state. Several pseudo-investigations have also been carried out on the basis of these statements. This is not the first time the Group has been falsely accused by individuals motivated by their own business and political interests. We look forward to MP Kostenko’s rebuttal of his false accusations and continue to take all steps necessary to protect our reputation."