The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) expresses its resentment against and unacceptability of the situation that seeks to impede the investigation into actions that have led to billions of dollars of capital shortage, with the state having to use taxpayer money to bail out PrivatBank. On 15 December 2017, Kyiv's Solomianskyi district court allegedly made a decision, based on a lawsuit lodged by Ihor Kolomoiskyi, seeking to stymie cooperation of the NBU, Ukraine’s Finance Ministry and PrivatBank with Ukrainian and international companies (legal advisers and consultants) tasked with carrying out financial investigation of PrivatBank's activities and providing legal support of cases concerning the bank’s nationalization.
Of grave concerns are the facts that through the misuse of Ukraine’s justice system the bank’s ex-shareholders are seeking to find illegal protection for themselves from any attempts by state authorities to bring the perpetrators to responsibility for bringing the largest bank of Ukraine to bankruptcy. Their actions also aim to impose the actual ban on recovering by the Ukrainian state of funds that were siphoned off from the bank.
The decision has allegedly prohibited the state, namely, the Finance Ministry, the NBU, as well as PrivatBank from undertaking any actions against the bank’s ex-shareholder, particularly, to involve local and international companies (legal advisers and consultants) and exchange information with them regarding the former shareholder. It de facto means the impossibility to protect interests of PrivatBank’s depositors, taxpayers and the state in more than 400 legal cases initiated by the bank’s ex-shareholders and their related parties in the aftermath of bank’s nationalization.
It is worth highlighting that such measures may deal a serious blow to the investigation into financial abuses by PrivatBank, which aims to identify those whose actions caused serious damage to the state and who were masterminding money laundering operations. Carrying out such an inspection was one of the commitments Ukraine has assumed to the International Monetary Fund as part of lending arrangements with the Fund. In light of this situation, the NBU has involved a world-famous international company Kroll which focuses on investigative work in the financial sector.
Thus, there was, in fact, created a situation to deprive the state of its rights to minimize its loss incurred while securing depositors’ holdings. Hurdles are created for the investigation of multibillion-dollar losses to the state.
In the near future, the NBU intends to appeal against the court’s decision and address the Supreme Council of Justice to move forward with a disciplinary complaint involving a judge Mrs Kiziun who has delivered the above mentioned ruling.
The NBU considers that such unlawful decisions do irreparable damage to Ukraine’s international image, lead to unjustifiable additional costs to the country’s budget and undermine financial stability.