When a screenshot can really help in a dispute
A message in Telegram, Viber, WhatsApp, Signal, corporate chat or email can confirm the circumstances on which the outcome of the case depends. In correspondence, the parties agree on the price and term, send an invoice, acknowledge the debt, accept the work performed, give an official task, report shortcomings or agree on a payment deferral. The problem arises when a single cropped screenshot is submitted to the court without a phone number, date, previous messages and an explanation of who is a participant in the chat.
Article 100 of the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine directly refers to electronic evidence as text, multimedia and voice messages, metadata, websites, photos, videos and other data in electronic form. Similar rules are contained in Article 96 of the Commercial Procedure Code of Ukraine and Article 99 of the Code of Administrative Procedure of Ukraine. Therefore, the messenger is not a prohibited or secondary source of evidence. The court must evaluate such correspondence together with other case materials.
At the same time, a screenshot does not automatically prove everything. The court finds out what exactly the message contains, who wrote it, whether it concerns a disputed legal relationship, whether the context is preserved, and whether there are reasonable doubts about the integrity of the data. The phrase "okay, I'll pay next week" can have different meanings depending on the previous conversation, the identity of the recipient, and the subject of the payment. If this information is not in the frame, the evidentiary value of the message decreases.
Therefore, it is useful to separate two questions. The first: can correspondence be submitted to the court. Yes, it is possible. The second: will it confirm the necessary circumstance. The answer depends on the method of recording, the ability to identify the authors, and the connection with other evidence. It is on the second question that the party's position most often breaks down.
Before saving the chat, formulate the fact that needs to be proven. For a debt, this could be an acknowledgement of the amount or an agreement on the payment term. For a labor dispute, the employer's task, a notification of readiness to work, or the date of familiarization with the decision may be important. For a dispute about services, correspondence sometimes confirms the scope of work, the customer's comments, or acceptance of the result. Without such a connection, even a real conversation may turn out to be inadequate evidence, because it does not relate to the subject of proof.
What the court checks in electronic correspondence
In its ruling of June 21, 2023 in case No. 916/3027/21, the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court considered WhatsApp correspondence in a dispute over the supply of goods. The court proceeded from the fact that messages sent by email or via messenger are electronic evidence. Such correspondence can be assessed if it allows the authors and content of the messages to be identified. The court determines the relevance, admissibility and probative value in each case, taking into account all the circumstances, and not by the name of the application.
Authorship is not always based on the name displayed in the messenger. A user can record any contact as “director”, “accountant” or “Alexander”. Stronger identification consists of several related features: phone number or email address, profile data, previous exchange of documents, mentions of facts known only to the parties, subsequent actions of the interlocutor. For example, after the account was approved in the chat, the company made a payment for the same purpose. This does not replace verification, but connects the message with a real business transaction.
The content is also assessed in context. A single message may be a response to a deleted remark, a joke, a draft agreement, or a discussion of another agreement. It is better to submit to the court a coherent fragment of the conversation, sufficient to understand the subject, date, and logic of the dialogue. It is not necessary to open all private correspondence if it does not relate to the dispute, but the selection should not distort the content.
The last level of verification concerns integrity. If the other party disputes the correspondence and calls the screenshot fabricated, the court may demand the original of the electronic evidence. According to Part Six of Article 100 of the Code of Civil Procedure of Ukraine, a copy may be disregarded if the original is not submitted and the correspondence of the copy to the original is questioned. Therefore, the phone, export file, backup copy, email with technical headers and other primary data should be preserved until the dispute is resolved.
The assessment of correspondence is not limited to the formal presence of an electronic signature. A regular message in a messenger is often not signed with a qualified electronic signature, but this does not exclude it from evidence. The court verifies the origin and authenticity in other ways. At the same time, the absence of a signature cannot be ignored if the authorship itself is disputed. In this case, additional data about the account, device, behavior of the parties and documents with which the correspondence is coordinated are required.
Screenshot, export file and phone: what to submit to court
The Code of Civil Procedure of Ukraine allows electronic evidence to be submitted in the original, in an electronic copy with an electronic signature, or in a paper copy certified in accordance with the established procedure. A paper copy of electronic evidence does not become ordinary written evidence. It is a copy of digital information, so the court has the right to request the original and check compliance.
In practice, it is best not to choose just one format. Screenshots are easy to read in the case file, but they should show the name or chat ID, dates, times, message sequence, and sufficient context. Separately, you should save the chat in a format accessible by the application, media files without re-compression, and the device on which the correspondence is opened. For email, you need not only a PDF of the text of the letter, but also the original message file with technical headers, if possible.
Before submitting, you should describe the origin of the evidence. In your explanation or statement, indicate which account the correspondence was received from, who the numbers or addresses belong to, what period the sample was taken from, where the original is stored, and what specific circumstance each fragment confirms. Such a description does not make the screenshot indisputable, but it gives the court a clear way to verify it.
Do not edit the image after it has been captured. Cropping private parts is sometimes justified, but the original full version should be preserved. Do not add arrows, captions, or colored frames to a single file. For clarification, you can create a separate working copy, and submit the unaltered material and text description to the court. Similarly, do not send a voice message through another application if this changes the file and technical data is lost.
If the message may disappear and the account owner does not control the server or chat, you should consider securing evidence before filing a lawsuit . When the data is controlled by an opponent or third party, it may be necessary to seek evidence in court . Both mechanisms require a precise description of the data and an explanation of why the party cannot obtain or preserve it themselves.
Check the method of submission via E-Court separately. The uploaded PDF with screenshots must be readable, numbered and named so that it can be compared with the explanations. Large videos, audio or volumes of correspondence may require electronic media or another agreed procedural method. If the court cannot open the file or understand what circumstance it belongs to, the technically submitted evidence is effectively useless.
What to do if the other party denies correspondence
The general phrase “this is a montage” does not solve the issue by itself. The objection must be specific: the phone number does not belong, the text has been changed, part of the dialogue is missing, the date does not match the event, the account was used by another person, or the copy does not match the original. The more precisely the doubt is formulated, the clearer it is which data needs to be checked.
The party who submitted the correspondence should be shown a chain of evidence. A phone number can be linked to a contract, business card, email signature, statement, payment details or previous messages. The content of a chat can match invoices, deeds, bank transactions, a shipment log, witness statements or the parties' actions after the conversation. The court evaluates the whole, so one weak technical element is sometimes compensated by a sequence of independent evidence. At the same time, external matches do not correct obviously incomplete or altered material.
If the dispute concerns the integrity of the file, it may be necessary to have the evidence reviewed by a court or expert examination. This requires preserving the device, file, backup copy, and access to the account. The expert should ask technical questions that can be realistically answered: whether the file shows signs of editing, when it was created, whether metadata is preserved, and whether the copy corresponds to the source provided. Expert examination cannot always establish who physically pressed the send button, so authorship is often proven not only by a technical conclusion.
The party who disputes the evidence should not limit itself to an assumption. You can ask to request the original, conduct an examination of the device within the framework of procedural rules, compare the full chat with the submitted sample, ask questions to an expert. If the person simultaneously disputes the correspondence and refers to its content in other documents, such a contradiction will affect the court's assessment.
Preparing electronic evidence is part of the overall litigation strategy . It is necessary to determine in advance the fact to be proven, the possible objections of the opponent and the method of verifying the original. Simply accumulating dozens of screenshots without this logic overloads the materials and does not strengthen the position.
Sometimes the objection does not concern the authenticity, but the legal meaning of the message. A person may admit that he wrote the phrase, but explain it as a preliminary discussion, not a final agreement. In this case, technical expertise will not resolve the dispute. It is necessary to analyze the wording, the terms of the contract, the author's authority and the subsequent behavior of the parties. That is why the evidentiary strategy must cover both the digital origin of the message and its legal content.
A practical algorithm for saving correspondence
Start with an unchanged capture. Take consecutive screenshots that show the account, number or other identifier, dates, times, and adjacent messages. If the app allows you to export the chat, save the export along with the attachments. Leave the original photos, documents, audio, and videos in their original format. Back up to a separate medium, but do not delete the data from your device.
Next, create a short timeline. For each relevant message, list the date, participants, the circumstance it confirms, and the related document or action. For example: March 12, the parties agreed on a price; March 13, an invoice was sent; March 15, a partial payment was made; March 20, the buyer reported receiving the goods. This timeline helps you see where confirmation is missing and whether a fragment has been taken out of context.
After that, check the authorship. Save documents where the opponent himself indicated the phone number, mailing address or username. If the correspondence was conducted on behalf of the company, it is necessary to separately assess the authority of the employee. A manager's message may confirm the actual communication, but does not always mean that he had the right to change the essential terms of the contract or acknowledge the debt on behalf of the legal entity.
Submit only the relevant amount to the court, but keep the full original available for inspection. In the procedural document, state the specific circumstance, explain the origin of the material, indicate the location of the original storage, and attach related evidence. If there is a risk of data deletion or loss of access, act before the lawsuit, not after the chat disappears.
For businesses, it is better to establish internal rules for retaining office chats: define working channels, retention periods, export procedures, access after an employee is fired, and backups. This is a relevant part of ongoing legal support for businesses , because the evidentiary problem usually becomes apparent after a conflict arises.
After forming the package, check it through the eyes of your opponent. Is the full number and date visible? Can you understand what contract or event is being referred to? Are there messages before and after the desired phrase? Is there a file saved that can be opened on the device? Does another document confirm that this account belongs to the interlocutor? Such a check usually reveals weaknesses before the other party formulates them in a response.
Visnovok
Messenger messages can be a complete piece of electronic evidence. Its strength depends on the ability to identify the authors, understand the context, verify the integrity, and correlate the message with other circumstances of the case. A single cropped screenshot is almost always weaker than a full evidentiary structure with the original, chronology, and independent confirmations.
If the chat is central evidence of a future lawsuit or is already being contested by the opponent, your Lawyer can evaluate the method of recording, prepare procedural documents, and determine whether inspection, retrieval, securing of evidence, or examination is required.
FAQ
Does the court accept screenshots from Telegram, Viber or WhatsApp?
Yes. Messages in instant messengers are considered electronic evidence. The court verifies their relevance, admissibility, reliability, and connection with other evidence. The name of the application itself does not determine the outcome.
Do I need to notarize a screenshot?
The Code of Civil Procedure of Ukraine does not establish a general requirement to notarize every screenshot. It is more important to preserve the original of the electronic data, properly certify the copy in the prescribed manner, and be prepared to provide the original upon request of the court.
Is it enough to print out the correspondence?
A printout may be submitted as a paper copy of electronic evidence, but it is not separate written evidence. If the correspondence of the copy to the original is reasonably contested, the court may require the original and disregard the copy without it.
How do I prove who owns an account?
You need to link a phone number, email address, or username to contracts, statements, signatures, payment documents, other communications, and follow-up actions of the individual. A single contact name on a phone is usually not enough.
What to do if the other person deleted the message?
Preserve existing data, backups, notifications, files, and related documents. If evidence still exists with a third party or on another device, you may want to consider a seizure or evidence retrieval request. The approach you take will depend on where the data is stored and who controls it.