How “Kolomoyskyi’s Hand” replaced the “Kremlin’s Hand”

While one week ago workers of the Barishevka District Court were the only ones to know about its existence, today the court’s decisions are being discussed even abroad. The Barishevka District Court adopted several resonant decisions, first suspending the license of SkyUp Airlines and then banning Kateryna Rozhkova, First Deputy Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine, from participating in board meetings and doing her job. Both NBU and the airline believe the court’s decisions were unlawful and intend to file an appeal. “Apostrophe” investigated why one could trace a certain famous Ukrainian oligarch’s interests in these cases, and whether he would be able to achieve his goals.

The world’s most “fair” court

“If you believed the Administrative Court was the craziest court in Ukraine, now you know there is also the insane one in Barishevka. For the past two days it’s been generating decisions that are very profitable for Ihor Kolomoyskyi and yet make zero common sense, going against the rule of law and Ukrainian economic interests,” Serhiy Fursa, specialist of the sales department of debt securities in Dragon Capital, commented.

The expert didn’t come to this conclusion randomly, as banning the flights of a smaller however very ambitious company is profitable for UAI (which Ihor Kolomoyskyi is a co-owner of), as “Apostrophe” wrote earlier.

“Because UAI is against competition. And because low-costs made it much cheaper to fly in Ukraine, thus turning UAI unprofitable. Which path Kolomoyskyi’s always choosing? He eliminates competition. This time with Barishevka District Court’s help, which received a complaint about poor service. It might be poor, but if this was a solid criterion, UAI could have lost its license 10 years ago, and there would be enough grounds for it. But the most “fair” court rules to suspend the license of UAI’s competitor. Who knows, maybe the judge will ban international low-costs as well. Why would Ukrainians need these cheap flights? We have UAI. And Kolomoyskyi needs to end his personal epoch of poverty,” ironically described the situation Serhiy Fursa.

As it turned out, SkyUp wasn’t the only one… With its next decision, Barishevka District Court banned the First Deputy Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine, Kateryna Rozhkova, from fulfilling her duties.

It is symptomatic that the oligarch considers Rozhkova his enemy. How is it even possible to ban someone from working this way? The judge just made a decision. The court’s decision isn’t only dangerous as a demonstration of Kolomoyskyi’s “omnipotence” but also as elimination of NBU’s independence. The institute of independent NBU is the key element for reforms carried out by Ukraine together with IMF. NBU’s independence is a clear marker for investors who just calmed down after Kolomoyskyi’s statements about default. If NBU loses its independence, we lose the IMF program with all the consequences. Be sure that the word “Barishevka” will be pronounced today even in Washington D.C., and the local judge will become famous, but who cares about him. Moreover, it looks like he never needed a visa to the US. The problem is that these Barishevka judges strike Ukraine’s economy,” Fursa states.

Will the court’s decision be executed? Most likely not. It is, however, the first step to depriving NBU of its independence, as the experts believe. The first step that has already been made.

“Ukraine’s judicial system rarely surprises people these days, but it does bring discomfort. Every time such “pearls” of the judicial system appear, my English speaking friends wonder “What’s this?”. At first, I tried to explain the logic behind these decisions, and then I grew weary of it, saying it’s just a
“bad Ukrainian tradition”. How Barishevka District Court can even dictate something to the government institution that affects inflation, UAH, bank sector climate, etc.? On the other hand, the market has already stopped paying attention to these “Barishevka wolves”. Perhaps, the next stage of evolutionary development is not even noticing such things in the media and not commenting on them. I hope “Barishevka wolves” will at least have time to count the money, as otherwise it would be hard to logically explain why Ukraine deserved such an embarrassment,” banking expert Vitaliy Shapran notes.

Vitaliy Shapran: “Ukraine’s judicial system rarely surprises people these days, but it does bring discomfort”

Oligarch without influence

Ever since Volodymyr Zelensky decided to run in the presidential elections, Ukrainian political society fiercely debates on the topic of Ihor Kolomoyskyi’s influence on the young politician’s decisions. So far, no one could establish with absolute certainty just how influential of a figure the oligarch is in the presidential administration. A series of ambiguous events suggests that not everything is perfect between Kolomoyskyi and Zelensky’s team. Among other things, the indicators are informational attacks on members of “Servant of the People” party lists.

For instance, an attempt to discredit the executive director of the Independent Association of Banks of Ukraine, Olena Korobkova, who is registered under #31 in “Servant of the People” party. It can be one of the elements of such an attack, with Kolomoyskyi’s strive to push NBU to adopt profitable for him decisions. The fact that it was Oleksandr Dubinsky, a “1+1” journalist who’s been linked to Kolomoyskyi, who “unveiled the scandalous facts of Korobkova’s biography”, only proves it.

Basically, Dubinsky’s arguments narrow down to two accusations: the lack of professional experience to head the association and (what a nightmare!) a friendship with aforementioned Kateryna Rozhkova. In her comment to “Apostrophe”, Korobkova noted that she has only work relations with Rozhkova and answering the question on what she thinks an attack on her is linked to, she diplomatically answered “obviously, someone doesn’t like my work in reforming the banking sector.”

As it turned out, Korobkova was not the only one on the “blacklist”. Another example of similar attacks is Danylo Hetmantsev. With Hetmantsev, the rumors spread of him being the beneficiary of the state lottery operator MSL and, accordingly, a lobbyist for the lottery market.

Hetmantsev himself doesn’t hide the fact that he used to be the company’s lawyer in the early 1990s, owning a 0,019% share of the company’s capital that he received as a result of the privatization of the enterprise. He, however, has been a director of a law firm called Jurimex for the past 15 years and has nothing else to do with the lottery business. As we know, MSL has been in a long time informational war with a monopolist UNL, which is linked to the MP from Poroshenko’s party, Oleksandr Tretiakov. The latter one has close business relations with Kolomoyskyi. In 2010, Tretiakov even sold him a 40% share of “Glavred-media” holding for 4 million dollars. It is obvious that Tretiakov is afraid of any MSL lobby from Hetmantsev, who maintained a good relationship with his former employer, and with the help of his business partner eliminates the competition.

Whether Kolomoyskyi would be able to achieve his goals through these means, such as getting the desired decision on PrivatBank, remains a rhetorical question. However, even the superficial analysis of the situation concludes that there are different influence groups within Zelensky’s team, and they all strive for power. Kolomoyskyi is no longer the defining power. Such attempts of the old system to maintain its influence and not allow the reform-makers to key positions are a serious threat to the country’s modernization. The Barishivka District Court “justice” undermines the already weak judicial system in Ukraine.

“It all reminds me of a joke about libertarians: the new fancy libertarian comes to the old corrupt one and says “Dad, give me some money.” However much I talked to libertarians in Ukraine (usually young people), they dramatically lack knowledge about how our market works. While it is rather sad, the joke is true, and the libertarianism in Ukraine is still something that exists only in dreams,” Vitaliy Shapran summarizes.