Aleksandr Okhrimenko, the President of the Ukrainian Analytical Center, believes the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (the AMCU) has again exceeded the legal deadline for considering the repeated application of the Chinese company Skyrizon and the DCH group to issue a permit for the concentration of shares of the Public Joint-Stock Company (PJSC) Motor Sich.
‘The Ukrainian News’ writes that the first appeal for such a permit was sent by Chinese investors three years ago, but it is rejected repeatedly without any explanation. And DCH’s application was returned without consideration under the pretext of non-compliance with technical procedural issues. Chinese investors qualify the actions of the AMCU as one of the manifestations of the general unfriendly behaviour of the Ukrainian authorities, which, in their opinion, is aimed at expropriating investments in Motor Sich. In this regard, they sent a claim to the Ministry of Justice with an announcement of their intention to start a dispute with Ukraine in international arbitration for damages of $3.5 billion.
Okhrimenko believes the failure of the largest investment deal in the history of Ukraine with a strategic external partner will result in payments for the already deficit state budget and will cause severe damage to reputation to our state. ‘It is a shameful stain on the reputation of Ukraine among the international investment community, whom Volodymyr Zelenskyi, the President of Ukraine, gave personal guarantees of comprehensive support for investment activities,’ convinced the expert.
According to Okhrimenko, the AMCU takes advantage of the imperfection of the legal framework for manipulation. ‘The Ukrainian antimonopoly legislation is ambiguous. It can be interpreted in different ways and leaves room for legal casuistry. The AMCU is misapplying it. Instead of performing their main functions, officials are manoeuvring. They temporize, return documents, and niggle. Thus, attempting to evade the responsibility for their decisions,’ the expert said.
The expert believes it is a dead-end path. ‘If the Cabinet of Ministers or the President changes, the officials of the AMCU who delay the implementation of the legal rights of investors to the assets of PJSC Motor Sich under various pretexts now will definitely be criminally liable. They will start looking for and appoint the guilty, and they will inevitably have to answer. And if Yuriy Terentyev, a former head of the AMCU, managed to be fired on time, Olga Pishchanskaia will not be able to evade responsibility, because the AMCU brought the country to a fine of $3.5 billion under her leadership. I do not exclude the possibility that, in addition to criminal liability in Ukraine, civil servants of the AMCU who are guilty of violating the rights of Chinese investors will receive international personal sanctions against them. Even conscientious ordinary employees of the AMCU, who are under pressure and who are drawn into political issues without their personal benefit, will be forced to bear responsibility for other people’s deeds,’ the expert summons.
As previously reported, Chinese investors sent an official letter to the People’s Deputies of Ukraine demanding the creation of a Temporary Special Commission to investigate the circumstances of the incident and protect investment rights in early October 2020. Chinese investors claim that they cannot enter Motor Sich, become full-fledged owners, and start doing business based on fictitious pretexts for three years.
The situation threatens to end with the dismissal of tens of thousands of PJSC Motor Sich employees, significant losses to the state budget of Ukraine, deterioration of Ukraine’s international image, and compensation from the state budget for over $3.5 billion in favour of Chinese investors.
Investors also accuse state authorities of corruption crimes to obtain illegal financial rewards by some government officials and retain control over the enterprise on the part of Viacheslav Boguslaev, a former director of Motor Sich, even though he sold the company’s assets to investors from the People’s Republic of China (the PRC).
