The Lithuanian Supreme Court ruled in favour of our client – Mindaugas Marcinkevičius, a minority shareholder in VP Group – in a case over his allegations about aggressive tax policies applied by VP Group companies.
The result also represents failure of an attempt to dismiss M. Marcinkevičius’s allegations by Vilniaus Prekyba, Franmax and Leksita, all belonging to VP Group, one of the largest business groups in Lithuania, and related entrepreneurs Nerijus Numavičius, Vladas Numavičius, Ignas Staškevičius and Mindaugas Bagdonavičius.
Impact of the court ruling on case law
The Lithuanian Supreme Court upheld a ruling issued by the Vilnius Regional Court in June last year, affirming that M. Marcinkevičius had the right to publicly express his views on the group’s tax policy, and rejected a request to declare these statements untrue.
Comments partner Kęstutis Švirinas: “I believe that this case will often be referred to in court practice in the future. What makes this case unique is that the Lithuanian Supreme Court emphasized the doctrines of freedom to express an opinion and the reasonableness of doing so. The court reiterated that a person is free to express their subjective opinion publicly if they have a factual basis for forming that opinion.”
Our team working on the case
Our team representing the client consisted of partners Kęstutis Švirinas and Kęstutis Adamonis with senior associates Almina Ivanauskaitė and Indrė Ščeponienė plus associate Aušra Gaurytė.
