The Supreme Court has upheld the cassation of ESU LLC against the rulings of Kyiv's business court dated October 19, 2017 and Kyiv's business court of appeals dated December 12, 2017 terminating the privatization agreement on the sale and purchase of a 92.791% stake in public joint-stock company Ukrtelecom.

A source familiar with the course of the litigation told Interfax-Ukraine that the Supreme Court sent the lawsuit to the court of lower instance for a repeat hearing.

"We believe that the ruling [of the Supreme Court] is just, and in the future we plan to continue defending our rights, using all procedural opportunities," SCM, the owner of ESU, told Interfax-Ukraine.

As reported, in the middle of May 2017, the State Property Fund of Ukraine (SPF) filed a claim seeking to terminate the agreement with ESU and to collect an $81.9 million fine. On October 19, 2017, the business court of Kyiv terminated the sale and purchase agreement for 92.8% of shares in Ukrtelecom. ESU filed a counterclaim, while the business court of appeals in Kyiv left the ruling of the court of lower instance unchanged.

Early 2018, the cassation proceedings started under a cassation filed by ESU.