The court of Nicosia (Cyprus) on Wednesday lifted the seizure of the assets of SCM Rinat Akhmetov in the amount of 820 million, which was imposed on them in December 2017 in the Ukrtelecom case, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Liga.net writes about this.
The court considered that the decision to seize assets should have been made during a hearing with the participation of the parties to the dispute over the rights to Ukrtelecom - RAGA Establishment Limited (the creditor of this company is Dmitry Firtash) and Rinat Akhmetov, and not without prior notice.
Cypriot judges decided that since the dispute has been going on since September 2016, the exceptional urgency of the arrest is not justified, and SCM has the right to be heard before a final decision is made on the essence of the dispute.
Raga said the company may re-file the seizure and intends to do so. Company representatives call the decision “temporarily suspended.”
“It should be emphasized that today’s ruling in Cyprus does not terminate the legal proceedings against Rinat Akhmetov and his SCM group of companies, but only lifts the temporary freeze of assets,” the publication quotes Raga as saying.
Raga representatives add that today's decision does not affect other orders of the courts of Cyprus, the Netherlands and the UK in relation to SCM, which remain in force.
“During separate proceedings in London and the Netherlands, RAGA was fully supported by the British and Dutch courts, which introduced separate freezes on orders for the assets of Akhmetov and SCM,” Raga said in a statement.
Let us recall that on June 26, 2017, the London Arbitration ordered SCM to pay $760 million for Ukrtelecom to the previous buyer, Raga Establishment Ltd (formerly Epic Telecom Invest Ltd). It was after this decision that the assets of Rinat Akhmetov were frozen by the District Court of Nicosia.
It follows from court decisions that negotiations between Raga and SCM regarding Ukrtelecom began in August 2012, a little more than a year after the company was privatized. According to SCM’s arguments, negotiations began at the request of ex-President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych. Allegedly, he asked Rinat Akhmetov to buy a stake in Ukrtelecom.
SCM also stated in court that the 100% owner of Ukrtelecom was Dmitry Firtash. Raga, for its part, states that the owner of the shares, including at the time of negotiations with SCM, was Denis Gorbunenko, and Firtash was only a creditor.
In 2013, a deal worth $860 million took place. SCM paid $100 million, but then the payment was stopped. According to the defendant, SCM was able to conduct an audit of Ukrtelecom only after the purchase, and it turned out that the previous owner did not fulfill its investment obligations to the state. The company had to invest $450 million in the asset within five years after privatization; build and transfer to the state a special communications network. In addition, the corporation found out that the privatization itself was carried out outside the law, without disclosing the real beneficiaries.
Therefore, SCM decided not to pay Raga the subsequent tranches of the transaction and put forward counter-demands - to terminate the purchase agreement and return the first tranche to Ukrtelecom.
However, the arbitration upheld Raga's demands for payment of money.