When Kliver, a high-tech company from Luhansk, signed a contract with Chinese Sun Yin Crystal Industry to supply equipment for growing monocrystals of sapphire in April 2014, its managers did not expect either of the two obstacles they would encounter in shipping it off.
Kliver received full prepayment for equipment of $450,000 for equipment, and was ready to ship in July. There was heavy fighting in Luhansk at the time, and the shipment was delayed. The equipment was taken out to Kharkiv a little later – quite literally – under flying bullets, only to get stuck there until this day.
The company management tried to register with the customs office there to ship the equipment through the Odesa airport, but was accused of fraud over the documents accompanying the shipment.
Investigators at the local police department said they wanted to make sure the equipment was exactly what was declared in the papers, and that the price is fair, not inflated to get a higher tax credit. Therefore, the Kharkiv central customs office froze the shipment on Dec. 3.
“I thought that my problems would come to an end as soon as I had got the equipment to the Ukrainian (not insurgent-controlled) territory,” Valeriy Alekseyenko, Kliver’s owner, said. “Nobody thought it was only going to get worse.”
The delay is costing Kliver dearly in terms of business reputation, making further contracts with the client difficult, although Alekseyenko claims the Chinese partners were initially ready to order five more machines in 2015 worth $1.75 million.
Both Alekseyenko and Euro-Diligans, his customs broker, believe that Kliver is up against an unjustified impediment in customs registration – most probably to get a bribe.
“The criminal proceeding itself is not a sufficient ground for prolonging customs registration over the defined four hours as it is not listed in the Customs Code as such,” Oksana Kobzar, partner at Felix law firm servicing the Euro-Diligans, said. Delays of goods are not uncommon in Kharkiv, head of the Guild of Free International Trade Oleg Tentyuk says.
Kyryl Grebenyuk, a police investigator who handles this case, refused to comment on allegations of bribe solicitation. “If you have evidence you can take it to the prosecutor’s office,” he told the Kyiv Post.
Anton Borysenko, head of the Kharkiv central customs point, and Olena Krasnikova of the fiscal service said they were not authorized to talk to the media about this or other cases they’re involved in.
On Feb. 6, Euro-Diligans filed a lawsuit against the Kharkiv customs to oblige it to complete the clearance of Kliver’s equipment. Although Alekseyenko was informed on march 11 that the criminal charges were lifted, the case is still set to come up before court on March 20.
Alekseyenko now hopes he can finally ship his goods to China, although he thinks the process of customs clearance presents a massive risk to business, and needs to be changed.
“Unfortunately, delays of customs clearance is the usual thing for customs authorities,” says Dmitrij Nabugornov, a lawyer at Goldblum and Partners. “They usually invent many grounds for such a delay. But, positively, Ukrainian courts support entrepreneurs in their disputes with customs. “
Gleb Bialyi of Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners law firm believes that in this particular case customs officers had reasons for suspicion.
“As the equipment is unique, customs officers couldn’t evaluate it properly. The supporting documents were prepared with defects,” Bialyi said. “This probably made customs officers suspicious.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Gordiienko can be reached at [email protected].
