The editor-in-chief of the Orda portal, Gulnar Bazhkenova, has filed an appeal against a court decision ordering her to pay Ratel Media LLP 3.69 million tenge for copyright infringement.
According to Ratel.kz, Orda's lawyer asked the panel of judges to overturn the first instance ruling or reduce the amount of damages.
He argued that Orda is a small business with only 7 employees officially on the payroll. The lawyer lamented that the sum of 3.6 million tenge would seriously damage the financial state of the micro-business.
After hearing the representatives of the editorial office, the judicial panel suggested the parties reach an out-of-court settlement within a week. New hearings will then take place.
It is noted that in July, Gulnar Bazhkenova lost a court case to journalist Dmitry Shishkin, who accused her of plagiarism. Courts at two instances rejected her claim for the protection of honour and dignity.
For her part, after the court case, Bazhkenova published a post stating that a certain woman from the Forbes list was allegedly working against her. She claimed this was the only reason she was losing court cases.
"So, the appeal was rejected, and the first instance decision in the case with Shishkin remains in force. I wasn't expecting anything else, but seeing it through to the end is a matter of honour, as my lawyers and I decided. We did everything we could. Even knowing that an influential woman (from the recent Forbes list, where she is below me, but in reality should be number one) interfered in both my cases to ensure I lost, with the harshest possible wording, contrary to law and common sense. To be clear and in fairness, my opponents in court have nothing to do with this; it is merely the whim of certain individuals in the new Kazakhstan. This woman orchestrated an information campaign to discredit me, simultaneously concocted an intrigue to take over my editorial office in February, and when I tried to defend myself in court, she intervened using her 'telephone law' connections. All with the aim of destroying me and Orda. But why?! For what reason?! She thinks you might bother her in the future, they answered me," writes Bazhkenova on social media.
It is noted that Bazhkenova did not name this woman from the Forbes list.
"I am neither the first nor the last person that the Kazakhstan court has judged unfairly, but others are being sent to prison for many years, and that's just how it is, so it would be ungracious of me to be upset and anger God," believes Bazhkenova.
In the publication, the editor-in-chief of Orda admitted that she might have to pay the amount of damages under two lawsuits.
"Never mind, I'll pay a couple of million here, and the same to that Asipov-owned Ratel (the appeal court decision will predictably be the same), no one has ever died from that. <...> The main thing is to know you live by your conscience, never stoop to meanness, and never slander anyone for money. You walk a straight path, occasionally forced to look back to fight off pathetic little scumbags. I've already forgotten about them; I have many grand plans and important things to do, while they live, breathe, and check their pulse against mine. What a misguided life strategy! The net result of this fight is that I've only suffered one loss – financial. But money comes and goes! It's something you can always earn again, as my mother used to say," wrote Bazhkenova.
At the same time, journalists from Ratel.kz noted that, according to the Adata.kz service, the projected profit for OrdaMedia kz LLP for the end of 2024 is 200 million tenge. Meanwhile, by October this year, the editorial office had paid 86.3 million tenge in taxes.
Recall that in July, it was reported that the Ratel publication had filed a legal claim against the Orda portal for plagiarism. The court ruled that Ratel's copyright had been violated and ordered Orda to pay 3.69 million tenge for using the content without referencing the source.
It is worth noting that several years ago, FBRK founder Kirill Pavlov also caught the Orda portal engaging in plagiarism. At that time, during the court hearing, Pavlov forgave Ms Bazhkenova for using materials without attribution, hoping that the Orda publication would learn from the experience and treat the work of colleagues with more respect in the future.