Yevhen Metzger, chairman of the state-owned Ukreximbank, caused a scandal when he attacked investigative journalists in his office on Oct. 4, after they asked a question he didn’t like.
These journalists, who work for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s program Schemes, on Oct. 7 revealed the subject of their investigation, which led to Metzger’s outburst, forcing him to temporarily resign.
They were asking about the bank’s $60 million loan to a businessman, whose company operates in Russian-occupied territory in eastern Ukraine and pays taxes to Russia.
The loan was issued using the SkyMall shopping center in Kyiv as collateral, despite the fact that the mall has been bogged down with legal problems for a long time, according to the investigation.
Metzger said the bank did nothing wrong.
“The State Bank has not made a single violation,” he wrote on Facebook on Oct. 8.
One of the companies belonging to Ukrainian businessman Serhiy Briukhovetsky allegedly paid roughly $50,000 (3.5 million rubles) in “taxes” to Russian-backed militants.
Briukhovetsky used Ukreximbank to buy SkyMall, which has been embroiled in legal issues for more than a decade, according to Schemes.
“Formally, the bank did nothing wrong by providing a loan to Ukrainian companies which have sizable collateral,” Alexander Paraschiy, the head of research with investment bank Concorde Capital, said on Oct. 8.
“However, the loan does not look typical for a state-controlled bank whose primary goal is to finance export-import operations.”
According to Concorde Capital, financing the purchase of an asset involved in an international scandal doesn’t look good for the bank’s reputation.
“On top of that, the rude reaction of the bank’s CEO to the journalist’s questions suggests that the bank has nothing to be proud of in this sizable loan story,” Paraschiy said.
Attack on journalists
Metzger on Oct. 6 resigned for the duration of the investigation into his aggressive obstruction of the Schemes journalists and their camera crew.
He said he stepped down “to neutralize the damage to the bank’s reputation, at least partially, and ease negative attitudes towards the bank’s wonderful staff community.”
The incident occurred on Oct. 4 at the bank’s headquarters in Kyiv, when journalists Kirill Ovsyaniy and Oleksandr Mazur were recording an interview with Metzger as part of an anti-graft investigation.
According to Schemes head Natalie Sedletska, a question posed by the journalists about the loan sparked an angry reaction from the chairman, who ordered his security service to seize and delete all data recorded by the journalists during the interview.
Metzger and his associates reportedly locked the journalists at the office for nearly an hour and threatened them. At the program’s request, the Kyiv police launched a criminal investigation into possible obstruction of the media.
The incident immediately triggered a stir in Ukrainian media.
Ukreximbank first denied taking any forceful actions and stated that the interview had to be terminated due to journalists asking about confidential client information.
However, on Oct. 5, Schemes managed to restore and publish the deleted video. The recording plainly shows Metzger and his security team threatening the journalists and seizing their memory drives by force.
Schemes is a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty project that airs on two TV channels in Ukraine and publishes its investigations online.
