About

Part of the Starlight Media group, STB is a leading national television network in Ukraine. STB employs more than 2,000 people and produces a wide variety of content, including for other national channels in the country such as the New Channel and ICTV. The 18-person legal department at STB is divided into two units- legal support of production and legal support for the company’s activity. The latter is led by Natasha Berkuta, and consists of four employees (Igor Andrusyak, Marina Sokolova, Anya Sichkarenko and Maria Ruleva) who work under her supervision. This department deals with all corporate issues of the company, legal service of the channel’s broadcasting, consulting with the news department and legal support to the activities of satellite companies. ‘This year, for the first time, performances were introduced with the help of VR technology, and an all-Ukrainian tour with presentation shows was carried out. Our lawyers provide full support for such activities – from writing the script to the complete and successful completion of the tours,’ says chief of legal department Maryna Korniyenko. Berkuta’s department is also involved in the maintenance of all checks conducted on the channel by government agencies. One of the most the complex challenges for this department was the transformation of the company from a closed joint-stock company into a limited liability company, with the process described by Korniyenko as ‘very laborious’, but also ‘as an example of a very successful case’. The second team within the structure of the larger legal department supports several companies within STB’s production group- Starlight Flims, Vaverka Production, production channel STB, the company Prokino. The department consists of seven lawyers (Anya Sych, Inna Gamaza, Mikhail Kislitsky, Irina Bryabin, Alexander Kucheruk, Kendzerskiy Pavel, Ostapko Oksana) and accompanies the production of content, both for TV programs and serials of the entire production group. Describing the team, it is explained that it works on ‘both format projects and our own unique projects [which are] developed by our colleagues, [and] which we also successfully sold to other countries. Projects on which our colleagues successfully worked, carrying out legal support, were “Ukraine GotTalent“, ”X Factor“, ”Я соромлюсь свого тіла” (Embarrassing Bodies) as well as many, many hours of rating TV content,’ Korniyenko says.