Sayenko Kharenko secured a departure from a previous Supreme Court’s approach addressing abuse of the right to sue

Through the efforts of Sayenko Kharenko’s litigation team, the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court established a new approach for dealing with abuse of a right to sue. The Grand Chamber departed from the Supreme Court’s previous approach in a case where our team represented JSC “Oschadbank” against attempts by the previous owner of BFC Gulliver to block a debt recovery process through fabricated lawsuits.

One of these actions sought to have a consortium loan agreement declared invalid. The Sayenko Kharenko team demonstrated to the court that the lawsuit was not filed to genuinely protect any violated right but was instead used to block debt recovery. The team asked the court to recognise this as an abuse of the right to sue and to leave the claim without consideration.

Under the Supreme Court’s earlier approach, courts could not examine the substance of a dispute or look for signs of abuse during preliminary proceedings. This often allowed bad-faith parties to delay the protection of legitimate rights of the opposing party for extended periods. Our team argued that the court should depart from that earlier position.

The Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court agreed and changed its approach. It ruled that abuse of the right to sue can include using court proceedings to delay the fulfilment of obligations, obstruct another party’s exercise of rights or create a fabricated dispute. The Grand Chamber concluded that the preliminary proceedings are the best stage to establish and to evaluate these circumstances.

As a result, the Grand Chamber fully granted Oschadbank’s cassation appeal, overturned the appellate court’s ruling, and upheld the first-instance court’s decision to leave the claim without consideration.

This new approach gives businesses and creditors an effective procedural tool against bad-faith litigation tactics aimed at delaying the fulfilment of obligations or blocking a good-faith party’s exercise of its rights.

The team working on this matter included senior associates Dmytro Shahirmanov and Zhanna Zayets and counsel Sergiy Protyven, under the supervision of partners Oleksiy Koltok and Olena Sukmanova.

The Grand Chamber’s judgement of 1 July 2026, in case No. 910/10837/25, is available at: https://reyestr.court.gov.ua/Review/138916246.