Two oligarchs, Ihor Kolomoisky and Gennadiy Bogolyubov, are filing arbitration claims against the United States for seizing their assets in 2020.
News outlets Global Arbitration Review and Dzerkalo Tyzhnia on Feb. 9 reported that Kolomoisky’s U.S. company, Optima Ventures, is claiming that the U.S. violated its investment agreements with Ukraine and asking for $23 million.
Optima has reportedly filed its claim with the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, a World Bank arbitration body.
In August 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice used civil forfeiture to seize the oligarchs’ properties in Louisville, Kentucky and Dallas, Texas. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation also raided the Optima companies’ offices in Cleveland, Ohio.
The U.S. authorities accused Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov and their associates Mordechai Korf and Uriel Laber of money laundering using a network of American businesses with the word “Optima” in their names.
Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov are infamous for allegedly stealing $5.5 billion from PrivatBank before the Ukrainian government nationalized it in 2016.
According to numerous investigations, the oligarchs used insider lending and a chain of offshore companies to siphon the money out of the bank, launder it and park it in businesses overseas.
PrivatBank — now state-owned — claims that $747 million ended up in the U.S., in the hands of the Optima network of companies, which invested it in real estate, metallurgical plants and other assets across a dozen states.
The oligarchs’ lawyers denied that their clients did anything wrong. Kolomoisky told Ukrainian media that he financed his U.S. investments with legitimate money he got from selling his Evraz metallurgical business in Ukraine.
Optima’s arbitration claim reportedly states that only Ukrainian prosecutors can launch criminal cases against Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov. Ukraine has yet to charge the oligarchs with any crime.
Optima stated that it is “unwise” for the U.S. to deprive Ukrainian investors of their property on the basis of a “one-sided misinterpretation” of Ukrainian law, Dzerkalo Tyzhnia reported.
American authorities haven’t publicly charged the oligarchs with a crime either. However, civil forfeiture often accompanies criminal investigations.
The Department of Justice wrote that it found direct evidence of money laundering in the August civil forfeiture complaints.
