A defunct steel mill in Ohio linked to oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky must pay $1.1 million in civil penalties for damaging the local environment and clean the site of contaminants, the publication Business Journal Daily reported, citing court documents filed Aug. 20.
The payment will be made as part of a settlement between the plant and the State of Ohio, which the Trumbull County Common Pleas Court has finally approved.
Reportedly, $472,852 would go to the state’s Environmental Protection Remediation Fund and $150,000.57 to Ohio’s Water Pollution Control Administration Fund. The other $500,000 will be paid to an interest-bearing Supplemental Environmental Project fund.
The same steel mill had caught fire on Aug. 11, while the parties were still waiting on court approval of their consent order. The Ohio Fire Marshal’s Office told the Kyiv Post that arson was suspected.
Warren Steel Holdings is one of at least 22 U.S. properties owned by Kolomoisky through shell companies according to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
American justice officials have alleged that Kolomoisky and his business associates bought their vast U.S. holdings using the hundreds of millions of dollars they stole from Ukraine’s state-owned PrivatBank, when Kolomoisky used to co-own it. PrivatBank is currently suing Kolomoisky and his associates in Delaware Chancery Court for over $600 million in damages.
The oligarch reportedly purchased Warren Steel for $13.6 million. An additional $21 million was then poured into the mill’s bank accounts, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Weeks after the plant closed in 2016, a local court greenlighted a temporary restraining order against Warren Steel, which was “abandoning hazardous chemicals and wastewater on its site.”
Since then, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency began cleanup of the waste, which posed a threat to the nearby Mahoning River.
