Today, false and defamatory information was spread during a briefing held by one of Georgia’s political parties against our firm’s client, Mr Sulkhan Papashvili. Unfortunately, this misleading and false information was mindlessly repeated in the Georgian media without any due diligence and factchecking.

We unequivocally declare and stress that Mr Sulkhan Papashvili is not and has never been sanctioned under Ukrainian or any other jurisdiction.

We call on the disseminators of these senseless falsehoods and on all other political parties to act with responsibility and caution when declaring information that is misleading, un-checked, defamatory, and professionally damaging. We also call on media channels to refrain from blindly copying and spreading false declarations made by politicians.

We suspect that the manipulation of the topic of Ukraine allegedly imposing sanctions against Mr Papashvili is related to the information posted on one of the Ukrainian portals more than a year ago under the influence of various interests, about which we issued a public statement in September 2022. https://www.interpressnews.ge/ka/article/725888-iuridiuli-pirma-blb-sulxan-papashvils-ara-akvs-da-arc-carsulshi-hkonia-raime-kavshiri-rusul-biznestan/

We believe it is not necessary to engage in discussing the inaccuracies and absurdity of the false information written about Mr Papashvili on the specified online portal, however we note that we are conducting a legal process to identify and respond to the initiators of this false information on the specified online portal.

We and our client strongly believe that international sanctions are one of the effective and rightful means of stopping the ongoing illegal war in Ukraine. Therefore, spreading any such inexpert and slanderous information in linkage with the international sanction’s regime damages the authority of this process and the confidence of Georgian society and professionals towards it. This outcome can only serve the interests of those harbouring negative intentions toward our country.

Neither in Ukraine nor in any other country have individuals or legal entities ever been sanctioned in any way through online portals, nor has it happened in this case. The mandate on the use of sanctions in Ukraine is held by the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine, which has never made any decision regarding the imposition of any kind of sanctions or bans on Mr Papashvili in Ukraine.

Law Firm BLB

Kakha Sharabidze, Managing Partner