Raiding in Ukraine is gaining momentum, even European businesses are not protected from capture
The number of cases of illegal redistribution of property in Ukraine is growing. In 2014, there were about 2 thousand cases, in 2015 – about 3 thousand, and in 2016 their number will be up to 5 thousand.
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Such figures were announced at a press conference in Kyiv by the director of the Anti-Raider Union of Entrepreneurs of Ukraine Andrei Semididko, who told how the takeover of control occurs.
“All property in the post-Soviet space has one birth trauma - the process of transferring property rights from state to collective. And in any statutory documents you can find something to cling to when re-registering corporate rights,” he says.
The expert also added that today there are more than 30 raider groups operating in Ukraine with connections to the courts, law enforcement agencies and the Ministry of Justice, and the interception of control of enterprises is facilitated by the lack of development of the relevant legislation and problems with the security of property rights registers.
“Now, due to the openness of the registers, you can see who owns the enterprises, who is the owner, and through forgery of documents, without bearing responsibility for such actions, you can calmly come to the notary registrar and re-register property or corporate rights. The notary is now not obliged to check the legality and correctness of the documents; the responsibility lies with the individual who brought this package of documents.
As a result of changes in registration laws, enterprising people without moral restrictions are now getting a second chance. By falsifying documents, they actually take over control. The situation is dire. Illegal actions have already reached the philistine level. Re-registration of apartments and real estate of people who left the country is underway. There are many cases where people, upon returning to Ukraine, discovered that their property had already been registered in the names of other people on the basis of purchase and sale agreements. The situation has gone far,” Semididko points out.
According to him, to solve the problem it is necessary, in particular, to abolish the norm that provides a non-documentary form of obtaining control over property and the principle of extraterritoriality, which allows the re-registration of rights throughout the country.
An example was also given of an attempt to re-register rights to the NOVUS supermarket chain, owned by a Lithuanian company, and the Kiev Sky Mall shopping center.
“There was an attempt to re-register Novus in the Baryshevsky district of the Kyiv region by a person who had nothing to do with Novus,” Semididko said. – The involvement of the Lithuanian Ambassador, the Minister of Justice, and the Assistant Minister of Internal Affairs made it possible to cancel the criminal actions. But this is only possible for large businesses. Small businesses are now constantly under attack. What kind of investment climate can we talk about when foreign investors are forced to conduct business in Ukraine with the constant involvement of diplomats from their countries to protect their business before representatives of law enforcement, regulatory and registration authorities?
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