Oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky doesn’t just want money that he says was stolen from him – he wants the bank it came in as well.
A day after online news agency Ekonomichna Pravda quoted Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky stating that he wants $2 billion in compensation for his loss of ownership of the country’s largest bank, the oligarch has decided that he now wants his shares to be returned as well.
Privatbank, Ukraine’s largest bank, was nationalized in 2016 after the government claimed that the bank was on the brink of collapse.
On April 9, Kyiv’s Economic Court accepted Kolomoisky’s amendments to a lawsuit against Ukraine’s government in which the oligarch is demanding the full return of his 41.5-percent share of the bank.
A similar claim was made by Triantal Investments Ltd, allegedly owned by Kolomoisky, which owned 16.5 percent of the shares of PrivatBank before it was nationalized.
The court hearing concerning the legality of PrivatBank’s nationalization is set to take place on April 18.
During the interview, which was published on April 8, the oligarch said that the bank’s assets were stolen from its previous owners.
“In the case of PrivatBank, the shareholders were robbed. All this talk about millions and billions (stolen) is a cover-up for those who stole other people’s property,” Kolomoisky said. “I don’t need PrivatBank, but I had $2 billion worth of capital. Return (the money) and that’s it.”
Kolomoisky is accused of using the country’s largest bank for money laundering and as a massive pocket bank, using depositors’ money to finance the owners’ business interests. The oligarch denies any wrongdoing.
During the interview, Kolomoisky said the $5.5 billion the government claimed was missing from the bank’s books was never stolen, but rather transferred to and from the bank on a regular basis.
“Over $2.5 billion never left the bank. On the same day, when the money was taken out, the money was returned. It was a hedge. Money didn’t leave the bank,” said Kolomoisky.
Asked who was responsible for the alleged fraud, Kolomoisky named incumbent President Petro Poroshenko, with whom the oligarch has strained personal relations, as well as Valeria Gontareva, the head of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) at the time Privatbank was nationalized, and Kateryna Rozhkova, the current deputy head of the central bank.
Kolomoisky said he didn’t blame Oleksandr Danylyuk, the former finance minister, for the loss of the bank.
“I can’t name Danylyuk… He participated, but he wasn’t the perpetrator,” said Kolomoisky.
Danylyuk is currently an economic advisor to comedian and presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who is considered to be close to Kolomoisky by Zelenskiy’s opponents.
Zelenskiy won the first round of Ukraine’s presidential elections, receiving over 30 percent of the vote, nearly double the amount won by Poroshenko, who came second. The two will compete in a runoff vote on April 21.
Zelenskiy has business ties with Kolomoisky as his TV series are run on the oligarch’s 1+1 channel, while the channel is also used as the presidential candidate’s political platform.
PrivatBank, Ukraine’s largest bank in terms of capitalization and client base, was nationalized in 2016, when it became clear that the bank was in financial difficult. The bank failed a stress test, with Gontareva stating that that Hr 148 billion ($5.5 billion) was missing from the bank – allegedly withdrawn from it illegally. The gap was ultimately financed by taxpayers after the bank was nationalized.
In early 2018, a forensic audit by Kroll, a New York-based consulting firm hired by PrivatBank, uncovered a “large-scale and coordinated fraud” scheme that emptied $5.5 billion from the bank’s vaults, the NBU said in a statement.
In 2017, NBU canceled the license of PriceWaterhouseCoopers Ukraine, a subsidiary of one of the Big Four global auditors, for “the verification of misrepresented financial information” leading to a $5.5 billion balance-sheet hole in PrivatBank. PrivatBank is now suing PwC for $3 billion.
In December 2017, PrivatBank through London’s High Court of Justice sued Kolomoisky and his business partner Gennadiy Bogolyubov, accusing the two of fraud and demanding a $2.5 billion in compensation. In December 2018 the court ruled that the case was not under its jurisdiction: PrivatBank has appealed.
In December 2018, Ukraine’s central bank filed a lawsuit against Kolomoisky in Switzerland, demanding that the oligarch repay Hr 6.64 billion ($238 million).
In Ukraine, Kolomoisky also faces legal problems, with Kyiv’s Pechersk District Court recently ordering the arrest of assets belonging to a number of companies connected to the former owners of PrivatBank. The order was issued under a criminal case opened earlier on the embezzlement of over Hr 19 billion ($700 million) in refinancing funds issued to PrivatBank by the NBU.
