Today, at the first meeting of the National Reform Council, Head of the Office of Simple Solutions Mikheil Saakashvili announced that settlement agreements would be concluded between the government and businesses allowing the state to return substantial amounts of debts instead of launching criminal cases.
This idea was previously put forward by Oleg Bakhmatyuk, who offered to repay to the state debts worth UAH 8 billion (US$300.7 million) of banks removed from the market as a result of the banking crisis in 2014, as reported by Ukrainian News.
"We are now drawing the norm that it will be possible to reach procedural agreements when there are old cases on businesses, for example, involving the money, to say: Ok. What is the procedure now? You must establish all damage, and then, until it is covered in full, the case doesn't close or someone needs to be put in jail. Nothing like this! In Georgia, for the first year we introduced procedural agreements and returned US$1.5 billion to the state. It was just a settlement deal between prosecutors and businesses. If there is any damage and litigation lasts for many years, we will settle it. We don't need people in prison. We need to put this on the conveyor belt. There will be a minimum agreement that suits both parties, case closed, move on," Saakashvili said at the first meeting of the National Reform Council.