Ukraine’s anti-graft agencies charge ex-MP Lohvynskyi with misappropriating $1.4 million
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) have charged former People’s Front party MP Heorhiy Lohvynskyi with misappropriation of state funds, the agencies reported on July 11.
He is now the seventh suspect in the case related to the Gold Mandarin Oil company, in which UAH 54 million ($1.4 million) is claimed to have been misappropriated from the state budget.
The anti-graft agencies could charge Lohvynskyi after the expiration of his immunity as a relative of European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) judge Hanna Yudkivska.
He has been served with charged papers in absentia since he had left the territory of Ukraine on the eve of the immunity’s expiration.
Investigators believe that during 2013-2016, Lohvynskyi misappropriated state budget funds through an illegal scheme.
In addition, he allegedly misled the (ECHR regarding the disputed legal relationship between Gold Mandarin Oil, controlled by other co-participants in the case, and Kyivenergo energy company.
In September 2013, a representative of Gold Mandarin Oil filed an appeal to the ECHR to collect UAH 54.179 million ($1.4 million) from the state budget of Ukraine as an unpaid Kyivenergo debt based on a court decision that, apparently, had not been implemented by the executive service since 2009.
Investigators established that at the time of the application to the ECHR, all of Gold Mandarin Oil’s property and accounts had been seized to ensure the fulfillment of debt obligations worth over UAH 70 million ($1.9 million) to the state-owned Rodovid Bank.
The suspects in the case also hid from the court the fact that Gold Mandarin Oil, on the eve of its appeal to the ECHR, had ceded its rights of claim to Kyivenergo in favor of another company and received UAH 54.179 million for it.
The investigation states that Lohvynskyi agreed with the leadership of Ukraine’s Justice Ministry, with the help of which the Government Commissioner for the ECHR prepared a declaration on an amicable settlement of the dispute and actually admitted the state’s fault for not complying with the court’s decision in the dispute between two private companies.
Based on the declaration concluded in favor of the enterprise controlled by Lohvynskyi, UAH 54.179 million was re-transferred, but this time from the state budget. The funds were legalized using conversion centers.
The NABU charged six people with taking part in the illegal scheme back in January 2020.
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