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Telecom
December 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 29
ING stung by the probe
Also in September this year, Dutch bank ING agreed to pay fines and other payments worth €775mn for “serious shortcomings” in executing policies that would prevent financial crime. While Dutch investigators found no evidence of ING helping its customers in potential criminal activi- ties, prosecutors detailed several examples where ING accounts were used in committing crimes. They included the transfer of “bribes worth mil-
lions of dollars [by VimpelCom] via its bank ac- counts with ING to a company owned by the daughter of a former Uzbek president".
The Amsterdam-based bank said it regretted mistakes that allowed customers to use their accounts for money laundering and corrupt prac- tices between 2010 and 2016. It was fined €675mn and agreed to pay another €100mn as a disgorge- ment payment.
Kyiv court rejects claim to cancel privatisation of Ukraine's telecom major
The Kyiv Economic Court has rejected the claim of the State Property Fund (SPF) that demanded the cancellation of the sales-purchase agreement of a 92.79% stake in the nation's leading telecoms company Ukrtelecom in 2011.
Ukrtelecom was privatised in March 2011, when an unknown company called ESU paid UAH10.6bn ($1.3bn) for its 92.79% stake. In 2013, the System Capital Management (SCM) business group of Ukraine’s richest oligarch Rinat Akhmetov pur- chased ESU and became the owner of the priva- tised Ukrtelecom stake.
In its November 7 ruling, the court rejected two funds' arguments of an alleged breach of an SPA agreement by Ukrtelecom's acquirer, Interfax news agency reported on November 21.
The first claim was that the acquirer failed to invest at least $450mn in the company’s develop- ment in five years after the purchase (the court agreed with the defendant's position that $802mn in "investments" were made).
The second claim was that the acquirer failed to spin off and pass to the government a subsidiary that provides special communication services for
the state for two years after the deal (the court found that this subsidiary was created on time and was ready to be passed to a state body, though it was passed later due to bureaucratic reasons).
In 2017, the SPF initiated the cancellation of the 2011 agreement to privatise Ukrtelecom. In Octo- ber 2017, the Kyiv Economic Court ruled in favour of the fund, and so did the Kyiv Appellate Eco- nomic Court in March 2018. However, Ukraine’s Supreme Court cancelled in July 2018 rulings of the lower courts and ruled to send the case for revision to the Kyiv Economic Court.
"Akhmetov’s interim victory in his battle with the privatisation agency is no more surprising after the Supreme Court ruling in his favour," Alexander Paraschiy at Kyiv-based brokerage Concorde Capi- tal wrote in a note on November 22. "This is not the tycoon's final victory, as all his shares in Uktelecom are being pledged under loans in Ukraine’s state banks, to whom it owes over UAH4bn."
On top of that, Akhmetov is facing the risk that he will have to pay over $800mn to Raga, who claims in international courts that Akhmetov failed to pay for a purchase of ESU (Ukrtelecom) in 2013, the expert believes.