The Court of Appeal refused to lift the seizure of Motor Sich JSC shares
The Court of Appeal of Kyiv City refused to lift the seizure of Motor Sich JSC shares. According to the shareholder’s lawyers, the state puts pressure on the shareholders, and the seizure itself is contrary to the current legislation, case materials and common sense.
This was stated by the lawyers of the Motor Sich JSC shareholder when commenting on the results of the hearing at the Court of Appeal of Kyiv City on Thursday, August 27.
“Unfortunately, the court ignored our arguments, and despite the extremely weak position of the prosecutors and the investigation, the court did not satisfy our appeal,” the lawyer Aleksandr Maksimenko said. He also noted that the lawyers intended to continue to insist on lifting the seizure of the above shares in a lawful manner. In particular, the next hearing on this case is scheduled for September 8 in the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv City.
“By taking these measures, the authorities are actually raiding at the state level. Without any reason, the state has seized the company and is terrorizing its legal owners,” another shareholder’s lawyer Taras Kisly added. He also stressed that there was already a Chinese citizen among the company’s shareholders. Therefore, the judgment to seize the shares in order to possibly prevent China from using the advanced technologies of the Ukrainian aviation industry, in principle, does not make sense.
In addition, Ukroboronprom, which provoked the subsequent seizure of the company’s shares, has itself been cooperating with China for a long time and has been supplying military equipment, including aircraft, to China according to the lawyers. Therefore, the situation with respect to Motor Sich is politically motivated and proves to be unfair.
“There is no point in seizing the company’s shares in order to prevent further technology transfer. It looks like chopping off your head just in case when you have a headache. This is absurd. The state has a number of other more efficient tools if there are legal grounds for this,” the lawyer Taras Kisly said. The lawyers underline that nothing has happened to the criminal proceedings, and no one has been served with charges for three years, while the seizure is in effect, which, again, confirms the political implications in this case.
In addition, during the trial, the lawyers asked the court to summon the representatives of certain authorities to appear as witnesses. Previously, these representatives publicly declared their interest in the case, including the authorized representatives of the Anti-Monopoly Committee of Ukraine, the Presidential Office, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, the National Security and Defense Council and Ukroboronprom.
According to the lawyers, after the Security Service of Ukraine intervened in the business activities of Motor Sich JSC in 2017, and the shares were firstly seized, the company’s performance indicators have been deteriorating all this time.
In particular, the net financial result decreased from about UAH 2.8 billion in 2017 to about UAH 0.6 billion in 2020. The sales indicator decreased to about 40% of what was achieved in 2017.
The shareholder’s lawyers insist that if the court does not lift the seizure of the company’s shares, this will result in the loss of the Ukrainian industrial giant instead of the so-called attempt made by the state to save the company. In 2019, the company realized losses of UAH 525 million, which had not been observed before, and 7,760 employees of Motor Sich JSC have already lost their jobs.
The court turned down the lawyers’ appeal to summon the representatives of certain authorities to appear before the court. According to the lawyers, this also confirms the lack of state interests in this case.
On August 25, the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv City refused to challenge the judge in the case regarding the seizure of Motor Sich JSC shares. Lidia Shebuniayeva will continue to consider the case.
Otherwise, according to him, the investors will go to international arbitration, which will decrease the Ukrainian investment attractiveness and cool the relations with the largest trading partner.
